Old Firm

[divan]

What does 'firm' mean in Old Firm, re. Celtic v. Rangers games?

[incitatus]

I think this is because, as the two teams were local, it was a firm fixture, ie unlikely to be broken because of travel problems.

[divan]

Sounds plausible, incitatus. I've been trying to get the PR depts of both Rangers and Celtic to help with this, but, despite the promises of emails and calls, nothing concrete yet. You'd think this would be easy. Anyway, I'll post an answer if I get any sense from them.

[divan]

Well, I've finally come up with the definitive answer, after much faffing around, from someone at Celtic View. Apparently there used to be football mag at the turn of the 20th century called Scottish Umpire (or Referee), and in this mag was a cartoon which featured fat cat club directors with bags of cash, who would refer to the Celtic/Rangers derby as a 'firm' because of all the money the fixture made. Interestingly, neither Rangers' nor Celtic's PR depts knew this.