How Scotland the Brave sparked a row when SFA called tune over World Cup

Margaret Thatcher's government feared that allowing the Scottish football team to use the song as their anthem would play into radical nationalists' hands.

They said letting Scotland's 1982 side drop the UK national anthem would be "indicative of a national breakaway movement" and aid calls for independence.

However, officials said that the issue was a political "minefield", and allowed the SFA's decision to use Scotland the Brave at the World Cup in Spain to go ahead.

Classified documents, released by the National Archives of Scotland, have revealed the details of the debate for the first time.

In a letter to the Department of the Environment, sent just before the tournament, then Scottish sports minister Alex Fletcher said: "When a team from the UK play abroad it does not seem appropriate for anything to be played but God Save the Queen.

"To play the national anthem for one team but not another could lead some countries to think that the separate tune is indicative of a national breakaway movement."

But fearful of a public relations backlash, the government decid-ed not to go public with its opposition to the move.

Ernie Walker, who was the SFA's chief executive in 1982, said that at the time the UK government was nervous about nationalist issues, after they were brought to the fore by the SNP's Jim Sillars.

He said: "Anything that was seen as predominantly or exclusively Scottish was played down." He added that he would have gone head-to-head with government ministers if they had interfered.