Relations between English and Scots sports fans will always be seasoned with a dash of vinegar
WE SCOTS, Jim Sillars once argued, were 90-minute nationalists. Our sense of patriotism lasted for precisely as long as it took Scotland to lose heroically against Brazil. And then the pride which made us all Bravehearts for an hour-and-a-half f
aded to be replaced by a disabling sense that we were never, as a nation, going to make it.
Now, it seems, millions of English sports fans have become summertime Scots. That wrenching sense of hope giddily raised, only to be cruelly dashed – which every member of the Tartan Army knows is the defining experience of Caledonian fandom – has become the shared heritage of every Brit. Those of us who can still remember Archie Gemmell's goal against Holland in the 1978 World Cup, or David Narey's against Brazil in 1982, know the dangers of letting events feed your dreams of Scottish victory against the odds. You are destined, always, always, always, to be disappointed.
As John Cleese's perpetually frustrated headmaster says in Clockwise, the epic comedy of dashed hopes, "it's not the despair, the despair I can live with. It's the hope".
And now the whole United Kingdom knows how it feels. Over the last fortnight we've all allowed our hopes to get up. Andy Murray's storming performance over the last year, and the high quality tennis he served up as Wimbledon got going, meant we all felt that sense of dangerous anticipation. Might we, just might we, be about to see an unprecedented and heroic Scottish sporting success on the world stage?
Well no, as it turned out. But there was a consolation, of sorts, in the crushing sense of disappointment we Scots felt on Friday night. If a misery shared is one halved then our stock of sadness was more easy to bear because it was, for once, more widely spread. Andy's loss wasn't just felt in Dunblane and Dumfries, but in Dorking and Dartmouth. He was a flag-carrier not just for Scotland, but the whole of the UK.
There is, of course, a massive irony in middle England taking Andy to its heart – because Murray once, notoriously, was reported to have said in an interview that when it came to football he supported "anyone but England". If the Auld Enemy were taking on Paraguay in the World Cup then it was incumbent, he appeared to be saying, on all proud Scots to declare we are all Paraguayans now.
Murray was excoriated for his chippiness by various luminaries of English sport, including the ex-minister David Mellor, who lectured him on how to conduct himself in public. But what these souls failed to notice is that Murray's original comments were a joke, a response to good-natured teasing from Tim Henman about Scotland's World Cup frustrations. Scots are often accused of a certain thinness of skin when it comes to sporting slights, resenting it when our heroes aren't lavished with sufficient praise, but the speed with which certain English commentators weighed in against Murray showed that there are characters on both sides of the Border only too willing to take premature offence.
The truth, of course, is that relations between English and Scots sports fans will always be seasoned with a dash of vinegar, but there's more that unites than divides us. We're always going to enjoy teasing each other, and if a little bit of sharpness enters the exchanges, that's really only because you can't have a Y chromosome without wanting to wind other men up. In my own constituency of Surrey Heath, Scotland's variable rugby fortunes are often brought up as part of the everyday banter – the "your boys went through the wringer" backchat, which is a hallmark of conversation between male friends. But the same guys who'll tease me after another Twickenham defeat are the most passionate British Lions fans and those most grateful for what Alex Ferguson has done, over the years, for Man U.
Yes, there are aspects to Sir Alex's character, as there are to Murray's, which aren't totally cuddlesome. Both Fergie and Murray are always grimly focused on the game in hand, their determination to win squeezing out softer virtues. Neither are in the Phil Tufnell or Ron Atkinson mode, the sort of characters as well known for their bonhomie as their victories. But even though there's the potential for both Fergie and Murray to be caricatured as dour-faced sourpusses who're ruthless in pursuit of winning and sore when confronted with losing, feeding into existing stereotypes of we Scots, the reality is that very different perceptions hold.
Among most of my English friends Fergie, and Murray, are actually seen as refreshing contrasts to the spirit of fatalism which has seemed to infuse both English and Scottish sporting heroes in the past. For far too long Britain has turned out sportsmen, and teams, who have seemed to regard victory as an impossible dream and plucky loserdom as our inevitable destiny. But both Fergie and Murray are entirely bent on victory, which means that there is, instantly, a greater sense of crackle and excitement when they join battle with their opponents. And even when, as on Friday night, they lose, there is a real sense of pluck and endeavour, blood, sweat and tears, about their enterprise which engages the emotions in a way that great sport should.
The transformation of Henman Hill into Murray Mound at Wimbledon has been swifter than many of us might have imagined. Tim was always a quintessential English hero, his apple cheeks and perfect smile suggesting that Wimbledon wasn't just somewhere he played every summer, but the sort of gracious garden suburb which was his natural home. Andy, by contrast, is not a comfy, clubbable, Pimms and strawberries sort of character. But this summer he became the darling of the All England club. Because he put his all into giving Britain a victory. And in the process, he brought all Britain together. For the many more than 90 minutes we all watched Andy none of us were nationalists, we were all just fans who thrilled to the sight of one of us who wanted to win. And who we know, one day, will.
