The archive contains only articles from the on-line pages
|
It’s a good year to be sporty in Scotland. In Melbourne we won our biggest tally of gold medals since the Commonwealth Games began in 1930; at Murrayfield we beat the Six Nations’ favourite, France, and retrieved the Calcutta Cup after years in the rugby doldrums; and a young man from Dunblane has become the great white hope (in the obligatory dress code of Wimbledon) of British tennis.
Even Scottish football, although absent from the World Cup, is putting out a few hopeful shoots. Fairy tales come true when soccer minnows like Gretna find themselves in the final of the Scottish Cup.
What does all this excellence, or its promise, do for Scotland’s morale in the world beyond the stadium? Can we expect merely the temporary hysteria of media triumphalism until our next season of failure, or is success in international sport capable of kick-starting the kind of confidence and unity which ought to put the whole country behind Glasgow’s bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games and – in every area of public life – cause less whingeing and more optimism?
There are two kinds of Scottish pride: the chippy, wha’s-like-us bragging of those who are not truly comfortable in their tartan skin, and the calm, constructive self-esteem of those who are at ease with their identity. As few of us need reminding, the Scottish contribution to the world has been substantial – and over the centuries quite out of proportion to its population. The novelist William McIlvanney, who witnessed the scene, is fond of telling the story of the Scottish football supporter in the London Underground, en route to another collision with the Old Enemy in the days when the national teams still met at Wembley. It goes like this:
The tartan foot soldier, already far from sober, slid from his seat and gasped, ‘Penicillin!’ Passengers were startled, fearing a medical emergency. But the drunk was not short of breath. ‘The telephone!’ he spluttered. ‘The steam engine!’ Pause. ‘Television!’ Pause. ‘Tarmac!’ He heaved himself back onto his seat with a triumphant smirk at the bemused English travellers. ‘Scotland gave them a’ to the world! We’re the finest wee country in God’s universe!’
A fine wee country, if not the finest; a nation of gifted individuals who have seldom been capable of acting collectively for Scotland’s good. Much of our energy and talent has been lost to the homeland as the Scottish
In this month's issue Alan Cochrane writes about new penalties for wildlife crimes. Do you think it would be fair to ban keepers for life for certain wildlife crimes?
