New charity draws on Celtic connections

AN IRISH VOICE EXCLUSIVE

A GROUP of Celtic fans have chosen to embody the spirit of Brother Walfrid by founding their own charity aimed at providing a warm welcome for refugees and asylum seekers.

The charity, Fáilte Network aims to bring these young people—who hail from a variety of countries—to Celtic Park, by providing tickets, meals, tours, education and an overall positive welcoming experience.

Co-founded by a Saltcoats Bhoy, who now lives in Dundee, Tom Adamson—and two Celtic supporting friends who he refers to as ‘the two Martins’—Fáilte Network is built on solid foundations with all three men having had experience of working with refugees and asylum seekers, and fostering community empowerment, networking and integration.

Their deep respect for Celtic’s history and values acted as a catalyst for embarking upon this wonderful project, as Tom exclusively explained to The Irish Voice.

“Celtic Football Club was created by immigrants for immigrants,” he said. “Our ancestors arrived in Scotland by boat, fleeing colonial oppression and famine. When they arrived, they were met with hostility, racism and poverty.

“Celtic was founded to feed the starving Irish immigrants in the east end of Glasgow and to give the community dignity, belonging and hope in their new home.

“In time, Celtic turned desperation into celebration by achieving domestic success and reaching the pinnacle of European football.

“Despite football success and community assimilation over generations, we will always wear the shadow of our past. That is why we reject racism and welcome today’s immigrants to Celtic FC and into our community.”

Education

Like many supporters of the club, Tom received an education in the stands, via fanzines and the multitude of publications extolling the virtues of the club. That education propelled him into action in terms of helping others and it ended up being a career path too, having worked as he has, in social services for many years now.

“My early Celtic ‘education’ came via fanzines, the likes of the Celtic Minded books and the Green Brigade’s very early initiative ‘Refugees Welcome—Created by Immigrants,’ which struck a major cord with me. Bands like The Wakes and so many other aspects of Celtic and Irish diaspora culture and life were influential too.

“My first volunteering role came from a call out on a Celtic fanzine almost 20 years ago that was looking for Glasgow-based people to mentor refugees recently granted the right to remain. I also used to fundraise through gigs and DJ-ing—mostly punk and ska—for the likes of the Unity Centre, who did great work with asylum seekers in Govan for many years.

“I also remember one Christmas where my entire flat was just covered in toys for refugee children, so thanks to my flatmates for their understanding about that! Since then, I have worked in social services with the likes of SAMH, Action for Children and the Simon Community.”

A universal language

Tom has even spent a few years volunteering and working abroad in South America and West Africa with displaced communities. He also travelled to the immigrant and refugee camp referred to as the Calais Jungle, to work with the people there.

For the last four years, Tom has worked as a social worker specialising in assisting refugees and asylum seekers, with a couple of different local authorities—and football has played a big part in that.

He and his social work colleagues have previously secured match tickets from Arbroath Community Trust, Dundee FC Community Trust, Saints in the Community and Dundee United Community Trust.

He also set up a weekly football 5/7s session in Arbroath for young people with a focus on getting young refugees involved, which when he left his role there, was able to hand over to the Arbroath Community Trust to keep going.

Tom has also forged good links with the regional Scottish FA team in the north-east in his work and spoke of ‘a fantastic weekly football session in Perth too, involving the local council and other partners.’

“All of this predates the Fáilte Network, but it just adds to the belief that football is a universal language and can be a force for good,” he said. “Fáilte Network has been a long time in the making. Not only are we passionate about Celtic’s history and that of our community, but we were also saddened by the rise of the far-right and so we wanted to do something pro-active and positive. We want to foster solidarity, inclusion and anti-racism across the Celtic community and beyond, and we also want to challenge misinformation through facts and education—underlined by being visible and active in our community.”

To date, Tom has brought Kurds, Syrians, Eritreans, Sudanese, Afghans, Libyans, and Vietnamese to games at Celtic Park. He spoke of many of them having been really impressed by the Ultras’ dedication to supporting refugees, asylum seekers and oppressed peoples throughout the world, so much so that a young man turned up at one game in a full Palestine tracksuit, which attracted a lot of positive comments.

“Many of them already have a very positive view of Celtic, because of the fans,” he said. “I think they’ve seen a lot of them through TikTok and the like—it’s led to them asking me a lot of questions about it and being keen to attend matches.”

Fáilte Network will now seek to capitalise on these initial, less formal visits to Celtic Park, by bringing more refugees and asylum seekers to matches in future and welcoming even more new members into the Celtic family.

“Fáilte Network definitely isn’t born from a vacuum—we’re proud to follow a clear tradition,” Tom concluded.

Fáilte Network is a registered Scottish Charity: SC055026. If you would like to support their work, visit: https://chuffed.org/project/failtenetwork