I am afraid I found this a troubling book, notwithstanding the enormous respect I have for the contributions to Scottish life of Tom Devine, who wrote the foreword, and Joseph Bradley, who pulled together this collection of essays. By the conclusion of reading it, in fact, I confess I even felt slightly queasy.

Before sounding off negatively, perhaps I should get my self-defence in first. I understand the remit of this book: to explore Celtic, Scottish society and the Irish legacy. Secondly - and this is a personal whim - I've always regarded The Fields of Athenry as one of the most beautiful songs you can hear a football crowd sing. And, thirdly, when Celtic launched their Bhoys Against Bigotry campaign under Fergus McCann in 1996, at the press conference it was I who asked McCann: ''Fergus, how do you do this [dilute bigotry] while also continuing to highlight Celtic's rightful pride in her Irish heritage?''

In Scotland, in the business of football and society, it is always best to state your own background when passing comment. I am a Scot, a lover of football, and someone hailing from a liberal Protestant tradition who, because of my huge respect for Celtic, was keenly looking forward to reading this tome. I suppose I assumed it would reinforce my faith in the way in which the phenomenon of Celtic FC had been integrated within Scotland and Scottish life.

But in too many cases in these pages, this wasn't what I found at all. Instead, tragically for me, I came upon page after page of witness, characterised not by cultural assimilation or harmony in terms of Celtic and Scotland, but of almost fevered pulling away, separatism, and that worst distortion of Celtic's past and present, which is a sort of drooling, dripping Irishness. Frankly, you can only take so much of this stuff before you weary of reading on.

Forgive me if I've got this wrong. I adore football, and believe I have a certain knowledge and understanding of the game, and have been around Celtic just about every week of my working life. Against this backdrop, I had formed an impression that Celtic was one of the great Scottish clubs (possibly the country's greatest) and a phenomenon we in Scotland could be proud of, as witnessed during those fantastic days in Seville in May 2003. In short, a football club whose supporters put our country on the map.

Yet, now I read this book and discover that, for many contributors, straining their arguments to the point of absurdity, this isn't the case at all. Instead, I find people who were born in Scotland, who live in Glasgow, and who support the world-famous Glasgow Celtic, yet for whom being Scottish is just about the last thing they desire.

I'm afraid I must cite an unfortunate essay by the Glasgow-based singer and devoted Celtic fan, Patricia Ferns, as a case in point. The language, the sentiment, the zealous yearning for Ireland and Irishness in Ferns's essay, together with its subliminal ''separate'' and ''otherness'' subtext, are simply baffling.

Ferns cites one of her favourite songs, Don't Be Ashamed Of The Shamrock Green, and quotes her favourite line from it: ''Sure I'm proud to be Irish now.'' She complains about the likes of friends of mine - Celtic-supporting men and women in Scotland of the original Irish diaspora who have to go back four generations to find forebears actually born in Ireland - for whom ''there seems something decidedly unfashionable about being Irish and proud of it''.

Ferns recalls Michael Davitt, ''the renowned Fenian and Land Leaguer from County Mayo'', and asks indignantly whether, having helped plant the original Celtic Park sod back in 1892, Davitt would be welcomed back to Parkhead these days by Celtic. The fact that he certainly would not, in an ecumenical age in which we are all trying to dilute sectarianism (and by ''sectarianism'' I mean its purest form, denoting

zealousness), is a point of bitterness for her.

Ferns's piece is infested with this sort of stuff, dripping with a bitter, molten Irishness that betrays the beautiful Celtic legacy from Ireland, turning it instead into an ugly caricature. She is blithely astounded and offended that, when she goes to sing at Celtic functions, she is sometimes asked to sing Celtic songs but not Irish songs, lest some Celtic staff find the latter offensive.

''Yes, the staff at Celtic Park!'' writes Ferns with ignorant indignation. ''How can people who are offended by the core identity of the club and its support actually be employed by it? Should [these people] not be employed at other clubs with other identities?''

Reading these unfortunate sentences I thought of both Catholics and Protestants I know who, loving Celtic but not greatly into the his-tory of the Fenians, shamrocks, the Irish rebels and all the other stuff of Ferns's encomium, would find themselves at a stroke disenfranchised as Celtic supporters by her criteria.

In an imaginary world I even picture Jock Stein (''how can people offended by the core identity of the club actually be employed by it?'') bumping into Ferns at one of her sing-songs and telling her: ''D'you mind if I don't join in? I love Celtic but I'm just not into your Michael Davitts, your Fenian patriots, and Celtic being turned into 'a political and religious logo for Irish Catholics in Scotland'. I'm sorry. I just love Celtic.''

It was this brute hardness, this narrowing of the definition of what Celtic stands for, that soured my reading of Celtic Minded, though there are many enjoyable chapters among the 21 in total. From two former players, Tommy Gemmell and Andy Walker, there are terrifically readable accounts of their associations with Celtic. Both are devoid

of Ferns's impassioned Irish socio/ political ire, but are simply drenched in a love of Celtic for its own sake. Gemmell, in particular, is a gem of a bloke, and not just because he famously kicked Inter Milan's Helmut Haller up the crack.

I hope that great chunk of Celtic supporters who are Protestant will read this book. What they think of it would make a fascinating tutorial of its own. I only hope, like me, they remain convinced that making a marital vow to a football club is not akin to assenting to any religious or political charter, but is a confession of love for a football team, simply because you can't help yourself.

Celtic Minded - Essays on

Religion, Politics, Society,

Identity and Football, edited

by Joseph M Bradley, (pounds) 10.99.