Talking a good game: Big dreams of national side for Gaelic speakers

Ferguson, a former Albion Rovers player who studied and spoke Gaelic all the way through school but fell out of using it when he went full-time with Inverness Caley Thistle, was immediately taken with the approach.

“My mum was born in Toronto, and I grew up hearing stories about Canada, emigration, people leaving the Highlands and going across. It was like Pandora’s box for me,” he said. “I had the passport and was really curious about what happened to Highlanders and Gaelic speakers when they left Scotland.

“Everyone would always ask you over there. I found much more of an interest there than here — people would be like, ‘you speak Gaelic, that’s so cool.’ There’s just this different excitement about the language and culture that we take for granted here.

“We played against them with Valour, I actually scored my first Valour goal against them, and I started thinking about why we don’t have anything like that in Scotland. There is no club with any Gaelic slogan, any Gaelic connection. There is no Gaelic signage around any ground. Nothing. That got my brain going.”

Further prompts arrived when he joined Canterbury United in the New Zealand Football Championship in late 2019.

“You couldn’t help but notice the massive link between New Zealand rugby and the Maori people,” he explained. “The face of it is the Haka, but there is so much behind the scenes. Canterbury United had a tie to the Crusaders [Super Rugby franchise] in Christchurch, so had adopted this culture where you embraced the Maori values. After a game, everyone picks up a brush and cleans the changing room. Everyone cleans their boots, there are no academy boys doing it for you. On an away trip, everyone is carrying equipment. It all goes back to the Maori value that no-one is bigger than anyone else.

“That showed me you can tie language and culture into a club and it can be at the forefront of gaining attention, people thinking it’s cool and buying into it. Gaelic has all this stigma here, but put football into the mix and you have the chance to change the narrative that people put around it.”

Back in Inverness during the initial coronavirus lockdown, Ferguson began to water the seed. He worked with the Highland Council Gaelic team and Donnie Forbes, a friend and football colleague, to create FC Sonas, a combined learning and football programme which encouraged children to stay active while putting their Gaelic to practical use.

Ferguson and Forbes filmed drills in Gaelic, came up with lockdown challenges and, when restrictions allowed, engaged fellow Gaelic speaking players such as Roddy MacGregor (Ferguson’s cousin) and Harry and Lewis Nicolson of Inverness, and Donald Morrison, who also used to play for Caley Thistle and was most recently at Dumbarton.

“Once we came out of lockdown, we created a health and wellbeing resource,” Ferguson said. “That led us down different avenues to support schools through using football as a tool to promote the language. The underlying idea, the end goal, was the Conifa slant.”

Conifa is the umbrella organisation for federations that sit outside Fifa. In practice, this means teams which represent minority or stateless peoples, distinct regions or sports-isolated territories. At the most recent Conifa World Cup in 2018, teams included Kárpátalja, who represent the Hungarian minority in Western Ukraine, the Padania region of northern Italy, Darfur, Tibet, South Ossetia and Tamil Eelam, who represent the Sri Lankan diaspora in Canada and Europe.

Ferguson, who played for Canada at various age-group levels, was top scorer at the tournament for Cascadia, a team which represents the US states of Oregon and Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Cascadia’s group opponents included Ellan Vannin (Isle of Man) and Barawa, a side representing the Somali diaspora in England. They went out in the quarter-finals to Kárpátalja, the eventual champions.

“It was a hell of an experience that really opened my eyes,” Ferguson said. “The Ukraine government stopped about a third of the Kárpátalja players leaving the country because they thought it would give rise to the separatist movement.

“The Chinese government were trying to stop the Tibet team from participating too. There are some amazing stories. The Tamil Eelam side, all their players used to fight in the civil war. Players were crying when they scored because that was their national team.

“I played against the Isle of Man, and saw that Yorkshire and Cornwall have their own teams. I got to thinking — a Gaelic team participating in that is something I want to create one day. Of course we have the Scottish national team: it’s not about saying you don’t feel Scottish, not at all. But Gaelic speakers, or Gaels within Scotland is a distinct culture, distinct way of life and a distinct group of people. A minority indigenous group. It would give them a representation.”

Over the next five years, Ferguson and Forbes hope to build the FC Sonas concept to the point where a national team — the working name is Ball-Coise Nan Gàidheal (Football of the Gaels) — can be fielded at a Conifa World Cup. “You’ve got me, Roddy, Harry, Lewis, Donald, five players who would qualify for this team straight off the bat. Half a side of professional players without even trying,” Ferguson said. “But we want infrastructure beneath it, grassroots, supporting Gaelic-speaking coaches and physios etc. We want to create a Gaelic FA from grassroots level up.

“I firmly believe that if you invest in grassroots, invest in coaches, invest in creating opportunities like what exists in the media and music worlds but not in the sporting world, it can be a big success. If we create opportunities from youth level, to five a side, to walking football, all in Gaelic, you’re creating ways for everyone to use the language. Gaelic often gets stuck in education or work. It tends to be much weaker in the social arena.

“The Conifa team is what we want to build to, but there has to be something beneath that. Creating an environment where Gaelic is used in training, at the hotel, in the analysis room, wherever it is you are.”

Athletic Bilbao provide a template of sorts, but Ferguson aims to be as inclusive as possible.

“You might get a bit of controversy and criticism,” he acknowledged. “What are you trying to do? Why? What is the point in a Gaelic national team?

“The thing to emphasise is that this would not be remotely in competition with the Scotland national team — it’s totally different levels. But there definitely is some stigma in Scotland where some people would frown upon it as being a waste of time and money.

“For me, the coaching and everything else would be in Gaelic so you’d have to be able to understand everything that’s going on and you’d have to be able to communicate. It’s not to say you’d have to be totally fluent, but you’d need a basic understanding.

“Some people would argue that’s the opposite of inclusive, if you don’t speak Gaelic it’s not for you, but it’s about representing something, and if people want to put in the time to learn, we will welcome them with open arms. If you came from Timbuktu with no Gaelic and learned it over five years, in you come.

“It’s not the answer to all of Gaelic’s problems, but it’s another string to the bow, and the more strings you have, the more relevant you are to day-to-day life. This adds another string that is missing, and sport has a unifying nature that brings people together.”