Dave Chamberlain

"Hibs are the best. Hearts are cunts."

What the hell is Irvine Welsh, author of "Trainspotting" and "Porno," talking about? Hibs is short for Hibernian, and Hearts are actually the Hearts of Midlothian, the two Scottish Premier League football (soccer) teams that play in his native Edinburgh. Though they may share a city, they hardly share a fanbase. "If you're a Hibs fans, you grew up in the Hibs area of Edinburgh," Welsh says through a thick brogue. "If you're a Hearts fan, you're a cunt." As he says this, he's not smiling.

Sports in Europe aren't like sports in America. American football fans out there might disagree, but whereas sporting events in the States are family-friendly events, that's hardly the case in the Old World, where hooliganism, fan violence and racism plague live football games. It's a social current that underlies the prose of the current artist-in-resident at the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College, a lifelong addiction that takes a less physical toll than heroin (the theme of "Trainspotting") but a potentially much greater toll than sex addiction (a theme of "Porno").

"In the old days," he explains, "when we were younger, we'd go out and do the hooliganism thing. But I'm too old for that game anymore."

Just the term hooliganism conjures images of thugs raging in the streets, killing and maiming anything in their way and especially anyone wearing the wrong colors. "Well, that's the way it operates, or at least used to. It's changed a lot--it used to be less organized, more chaotic, involving thousands and thousands of people. Now, it's a relatively small number of people, and very organized."

Though European authorities have taken steps to eliminate the problem, it won't go away. "It's a problem everywhere in Europe," Welsh explains. "People don't realize this, but people always think hooliganism attached itself to football. It's actually the other way around: football attached itself to hooliganism. Most of the clubs were all blue-collar teams--Millwall was the dockers team in London, West Ham was the ironworkers team. Hibs was a Catholic team, formed to give young Catholics something to do. But the idea was sort of a temperance thing, to keep people off drinking and more into sport."

Welsh may have lost his taste for the violent side of football, but he's hardly lost his passion for the game. Everything from his appearance--a Hibernian jersey peeks out from under his jacket--to the constant references his characters make about Scottish football, confirms this. In fact, in "Porno," his Simon Williamson (Sickboy from "Trainspotting") carries on an internal dialogue with Sir Alex Ferguson, a Scottish legend and current manager of England's super-club, Manchester United. "He's very well respected," says Welsh. "And one of the great Scottish managers. He's the last sort of industrial, working-class shipyard managers. He's a great motivator, the last of that kind of dying breed."

Like a true European football fan, Welsh has trouble warming to the games we play in the States. "The Blackhawks and ice hockey is the only American sport I can get into. Baseball is like rounders, which is a kids game in Britain. And basketball, well basketball is like baseball--it's a girl's game."

(2003-04-09)

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