Anyone but England

Technical issues aside, I enjoyed talking about football with Mark Littlewood on UK Live’s World Cuppa yesterday.

It helped that the main topic of our conversation was Dundee United’s very brief foray into US soccer almost 60 years ago because it meant I avoided having to talk about team selection and/or tactics ahead of England’s match against Panama tonight. The last thing the world needs are the unqualified observations of yet another armchair ‘fan’ so I was pleased to be let off that particular hook. (I was also following in the footsteps of the great Matt le Tissier who had been one of Mark’s guests the previous day so that added a little pressure.)

In hindsight I was also quite pleased not to be asked about Scotland because, knowing that Mark likes to introduce a ‘political twist’ to the programme, I had suggested we might talk about the relationship between English and Scottish fans, an issue that has been a major talking point on social media these past two weeks, especially with both countries’ supporters visiting Boston, albeit not at the same time.

Had the subject arisen I was going to talk about my own experience of growing up in Scotland and experiencing very little (if any) anti-English prejudice, which is why I didn’t enjoy the annual home nations’ match between England and Scotland because it was the one time some anti-English sentiment might raise its head. Usually, though, it was more a question of bragging rights and was soon forgotten.

I don’t doubt that the ‘anyone but England’ mantra did exist in those days, but I don’t remember it being so universal. Denis Law, who died last year and was one of Scotland’s greatest players, famously couldn’t bear to watch the 1966 World Cup final and took his dog for a walk instead, so I can imagine there was plenty of banter between English and Scottish players at clubs where Scottish players were well represented, which was most English clubs at that time.

In my experience, though, living in Scotland for eleven years from 1969 to 1980, I don’t remember any significant anti-English feeling. It was never an issue at school or university, and to this day I still have Scottish friends from that period.

The ‘political twist’ I suggested concerned the fact that, when I returned to live in Edinburgh for six years during the Nineties, there had clearly been a significant change, prompted (it is said) by Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax (or community charge), a perfectly sensible policy that was introduced in Scotland before the rest of the country, leading many Scots to feel discriminated against, thereby fuelling a grievance against Westminster (and the Conservatives in particular) that has never gone away.

The anti-English feeling I experienced in Scotland during the Nineties stood out for me because I had been away (living in London) for twelve years and having never experienced any significant hatred towards England in the Seventies I noticed it immediately. The media whipped it up and as I enjoyed sport and spent many hours reading the newspapers at that time it was extremely hard to ignore.

The two occasions it really got to me took place in 1994, when the Rugby Sevens World Cup came to Edinburgh, and 1996 when England hosted the (football) Euros. For some reason, the England rugby team captained by Will Carling in the early Nineties antagonised a lot of Scots, but the sevens team that represented England at Murrayfield was essentially a group of unknowns. Despite that they were booed every time they entered the field.

Perhaps there was an element of pantomime involved but it didn’t feel like that to me. The derision felt genuine, unnecessary, and unpleasant. England won the tournament however so perhaps it inspired the players, but I suspect that bafflement would have been their principal response because it wasn’t how most English people would have responded to any Scotland team at that time, and still isn’t.

Two years later, in 1996, England hosted the Euros and reached the semi-finals and I remember, to this day, an article in the Scottish Daily Mail that would never have been published in the English edition. It was headlined: ‘Why we hate the English … when they’re winning’. Again, some might call it banter but it really wasn’t. It was a litany of grievances against the English ranging from arrogance to entitlement and everything in between.

Remarkably, one of the charges against English supporters was the fact that, for the first time, many were waving the flag of St George. This was a sign of rampant nationalism, apparently, but it conveniently ignored the fact that Scottish supporters had always waved the saltire and no-one batted an eyelid. Ironically, England supporters had previously waved the Union flag and some Scottish commentators had complained about that too because it wasn’t England’s flag to wave. You just can’t win!

As an aside, Baddiel and Skinner’s ‘Three Lions’ song with its ‘Football’s coming home’ chorus was first released in 1996 to coincide with the Euros in England. Even now (and I’ve seen it on social media in recent days) opposing supporters, including many Scots, consider it to be yet another example of English entitlement. Football’s coming home? How arrogant! But if they bothered to listen to the lyrics they would know that the song addresses England’s terrible record in tournament football (‘30 years of hurt’ since 1966, now 60!) and from beginning to end it’s entirely self-deprecatory.

Anyway, it was during the Nineties that Scottish fans’ antipathy towards their neighbours boiled over into ‘anyone but England’ or, worse, outright hatred, a feeling that is very rarely reciprocated by most people in England. Devolution was supposed to help reduce the animosity but with the SNP in power for almost 20 years it’s got worse, not better. Today the nationalists continue to promote discord with England and I really, really hate it. Born in the early 20th century, my maternal grandparents - she from Bannockburn, he from Keswick in the Lake District - would find the divisions stoked by the nationalists in Scotland sad and very disappointing, to which I would add counter-productive.

The current World Cup is a case in point. Until Brazil edged Scotland towards the brink of elimination, many Scottish supporters seemed content to have won the PR war (‘No Scotland, no party’), not to mention the beer bragging rights and the devotion of every Irish American living in Boston. In a tournament in which England and Scotland were unlikely to play each other, England nevertheless seemed to dominate the thoughts of many Scottish supporters.

Focus on the football, lads (and lasses), because it’s your obsession with England - not the union - that is holding Scotland back. Oh, and learn some history too. Scotland did at least as well as England from the union and the British Empire. For good or bad (mostly good, in my opinion), Scotland wasn’t a bystander as Britain built a vast global empire. It was an equal partner with England and benefitted accordingly. Rewriting history to suggest that Scots aren’t British and shouldn’t be held accountable for some of the excesses of empire, is laughable and pathetic.

Thankfully, perhaps, Mark didn’t ask me about Scotland so I didn’t talk about any of that. On a lighter note, here’s what I did mention. It’s a list of the Scottish and English clubs who were invited to take part in that soccer tournament in America in the Summer of Love in 1967:

Dundee United (Dallas Tornado)
Aberdeen (Washington Whips)
Hibernian (Toronto City)
Wolverhampton Wanderers (LA Wolves)
Sunderland (Vancouver Royal Canadians)
Stoke – (Cleveland Stokers)

Others clubs that took part included Glentoran (aka the Detroit Cougars), Cagliari (Chicago Mustangs) and Shamrock Rovers (rebranded, you won’t be surprised to learn, as Boston). LA Wolves won the league, beating the Washington Whips (Aberdeen) 6-5 on July 10, 1967.

Glad to be of service.

See also: Mark Littlewood’s World Cuppa

PS. You can watch my appearance on World Cuppa here. It starts from 36:38.