Leader: Disappointments on and off the football pitch

Published on Wednesday 8 September 2010 14:49

THE Scottish Football Association was right to condemn the booing of the Liechtenstein national anthem by sections of the Scotland fans at Hampden on Tuesday night.

Jeering the anthem because it has the same tune as God Save The Queen suggests there are some who cannot leave the old, narrow ways of the past behind. Scotland, with her devolved parliament, should be beyond such childish behaviour.

Having dealt with that, we must now focus on the more important issue: performance of the Scotland team, which scraped home with an eleventh hour 2-1 victory over a tiny state ranked 141st by the football body Fifa. Stephen McManus' header in the seventh minute of injury time saved the team - and the nation as a whole - from humiliation.

After the game, Craig Levein, the Scotland coach, said his overwhelming emotion was relief - something which the country will share - then added it was combined with "joy" and he was looking forward to meeting world champions Spain.

Joy? Looking forward to taking on the Spaniards? Few Scotland supporters will take such a positive view but, in the spirit of patriotism, we salute Mr Levein's optimism - but demand better performances, much better, in the future. Scotland expects…