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Rebellious Scots to crush …Canadians.
The anti-Jacobite sentiment captured in an old verse of the National Anthem emphatically does not seem dominant today, despite Mr Murray’s moment of rebellion on the morning of the Scottish independence referendum.
It is not a silly question to ask what effect Andy’s second Wimbledon Championship victory will have on how people in the various parts of the UK feel about Brexit and the possibility of Indyref2.
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Those Scots I know would have regarded Wimbledon as an irrelevant, post, English event, but for their anointed one, whom they follow devotedly.
It’s a bit like Formula 1 in Spain, until Fernando Alonso came along, the Spanish Grand Prix was noted for the vast prairie of empty seats, then suddenly a fellow countryman being a winner led to a transformation in interest.
But do not conflate Jacobite with Scot.
1) As one may see from your link, Andy’s attitude has been a bit complex, a bit evolving and has elements of anti-natz as well as pro-Indy and – to some degree – post-referendum second thoughts. I will not second-guess his attitude to the three subjects of indy, natz and referendum now two years have passed. The most likely thing, unless he changes from what the article shows, is increased reluctance to get involved. Andy has clearly been forgiven by his many English fans. My guess is, this will make him more reluctant than he was to offend them.
2) Celebs sometimes notice and sometimes fail to notice that people can simultaneously be fans, admire their expertise, and ignore their off-court opinions. Brexitting scepticism about the elite is part of a wider scepticism when any celeb backs the “official” line.
3) Sporting victories (and maybe also sporting defeats to small independent islands outside the EU) tend to make Brits feel good about Britain and so make project fear feel silly – but the effect is doubtless slight as well as irrational.
“But do not conflate Jacobite with Scot.” Just kidding, Mr Ed.
BTW, commenting on Mr Ed (July 10, 2016 at 5:00 pm), I know more Scots who follow Wimbledon than who follow local sports, and that was true in the days when no Brit had a hope at Wimbledon. But of course, your experience may be more statistically representative than mine.
One of the things the indref reminded me of was that while many Scots switch automatically to supporting England (or Wales) as soon as Scotland is knocked out (which usually happens early on the rare occasions we even qualify), there has always been a sizeable group of Scots who switch to anyone other than England. My neighbour (married to an Englishwoman, staunch NO in indyref) recalls his Scots father (when living in England) drumming this “We dinna support England – we’re Scots” attitude into him at a time when the SNP were the lunatic fringe as far as elections were concerned.
Niall Kilmartin, agreed. It’s not simple. It’s a standing joke (and standing jokes are very revealing) that to the press when a Scot or a Welshman wins he’s British and when he loses he’s Scottish or Welsh as appropriate. (Northern Ireland is a bit different.) But the joke is more complicated in Andy Murray’s case: any tennis fan who knows more than the name “Murray” also knows that he wanted Scotland to be independent but, as he said in the Telegraph article, he remains “happy to compete for Great Britain for the rest of his tennis career and said the UK would be stronger thanks to the referendum.” Yet it seems undeniable that part of the reason that he was getting the big cheers and Milos Raonic wasn’t (though I am glad to see that Raonic’s play was appreciated) was that Murray had the home crowd behind him.
In his victory comments on court he acknolwedged Cameron’s presence in the Royal Box, but not Sturgeon’s. Maybe he didn’t know she was there though.
What would annoy a Nat more than Mr Murray being cheered by a mainly English crowd?
I think Mr Murray was unfairly treated when he said ‘anyone but England’ when asked about a football tournament in which Scotland were not participating, it was put across as anti-English whereas to me it just seemed like a call for a break from having to put up with the (illusory) prospect of English success. A Welsh friend of my father’s reacted to Wales losing at rugby to England like a bereavement, being unconsolable for weeks. It wasn’t anything anti-English, just a loss of pride I suspect.
Donald Smith was a Scot, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.
http://www.strathconas.ca
Cheers
Some years ago I spent a few glorious weeks in Scotland (loved the place) at a time when some big international soccer tournament was going on, and the Scottish team had been knocked out but the English team was still going strong. As far as I could see the sentiment in the pubs every evening was “anybody but England”.
Of course, they’re still fighting the Battle of Culloden there, too. As a US southerner, I sympathize.
Laird (July 11, 2016 at 1:10 am): Some years ago I spent a few glorious weeks in Scotland (loved the place) at a time when some big international soccer tournament was going on, and the Scottish team had been knocked out but the English team was still going strong.”
So you visited at some time – pretty well any time – during the last 100 years. 🙂 I remember 1984 when loads of Scots had bags and stickers saying “We’re going to Argentina” – they were so proud of even having qualified! I had more sense than to get one of these since I foresaw how swiftly they would need to be edited to read “We’re coming back from Argentina”.
“As far as I could see the sentiment in the pubs every evening was “anybody but England”.”
I’m not in the least surprised the pub loudmouths gave off that air. Like political correctness (which it also resembles in other ways), this kind of aggressive “We define ourselves as Scot by being anti-Englishs” culture (if culture is the word I want 🙂 ) is a way for bigots to grab the discourse.
> But do not conflate Jacobite with Scot.
Especially when you remember that the Jacobite cause was not an independent Scotland at all, but rather a restoration of the Stuart line to the monarchy of Great Britain. A reasonable legal position if you believe is all that primogeniture nonsense.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) does not want independence.
It wants Scotland to be ruled by the European Union – from Belgium, really from Germany.
That is NOT “Scottish Independence”.
This is a very simple point of logic.
Why do the SNP keep talking about wanting “Scottish Independence” when that is exactly what they do NOT want.
The feelings of Canadians towards US Americans are qualitatively similar, in as far as i can see, to the feelings of the Scots towards the English. Less intense feelings, i suppose, because the Canadians do not share a Parliament with their Southern neighbors. Also, there is no rivalry between national teams, whether soccer or rugby, because they don’t have any national teams that they much care about.