Nice try, Scotland

Between 1966 and 2003 there has been a telling change north of the border in the coverage of England's World Cup triumphs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0...1103515,00.html

Richard Holt
Wednesday December 10, 2003
The Guardian

The fortunes of their football and rugby teams have been at the heart of relations between England and Scotland for well over a century. The England-Scotland football match was the biggest annual game for both nations until the 80s; and in rugby - even in these days of the global game - the Calcutta Cup match is still an event.
Historically, the possibility of beating England has been a form of compensation for the way the Scots feel routinely patronised by the most powerful member of that unique family of nations: the United Kingdom. That all this never mattered as much in England as in Scotland was for the Scots both a part and a proof of the unequal relationship. England winning anything, especially a world cup, made a bad arrangement intolerable. Hence the supreme satisfaction of beating England at Wembley the year after England won the football World Cup in 1966. Jim Baxter's taunting of Nobby Stiles by playing keepie-uppie was the icing on the cake, a treasured moment for Scotsmen and women of a certain age.

But how much have things changed since then? Is anti-Englishness on the wane now that Scotland has a parliament? Scotland's response to England's victory in the rugby World Cup should be telling.

Compare the press reactions to Wembley 1966 and Sydney 2003. The Scotsman's leading headline of August 1 1966 ran: Lyceum to Change Play Policy. An Edinburgh theatre's choice of plays was clearly more important than anything else. There was no mention of England's victory anywhere on the front page and no picture until page 11, which showed "the West German football team hailed as the 'real world champions' on their return".

The Herald put this triumphal image of the West German team on the front page, confining England to a couple of columns and a photo on page four. "Team spirit gains England the Cup," ran the headline, reflecting the widespread Scottish view that England lacked creativity. "Flair" in football was Scottish.

John Rafferty, the Scotsman's football correspondent, accused the FA of choosing referees who favoured England and of running the competition with "typical English disregard for what others might think". The Scotsman's editorial complained miserably that the prevailing economic crisis had been covered up by football and even condemned "the enthusiasm of Saturday's Wembley crowd as approaching the hysteria of the Nuremberg rallies".

The front page of the Scotsman of Monday November 24 2003 in many ways resembled 1966. There was a large picture of the Earl and Countess of Wessex and their baby, but no sign of England or Jonny Wilkinson, whose own baby face was splashed across every paper south of the border. No mention of Saturday's final was to be seen, though a banner headline promised a full report on the Hearts-Hibs clash, and there was space for a photo and a short piece on the Dalai Lama's proposed visit to Glasgow.

Unlike the Scotsman, the Herald gave extensive coverage to the match and offered one of its leading columnists, Ruth Wishart, the op-ed spot to tackle the issue head on. "Can we conquer a lifetime's instinct and support England?" she asked. With some difficulty but we ought to try, came the answer. To be fair, it was a difficult job coming just at the moment when the Scottish football team had been demolished by the Dutch.

This new tension between feeling that Scotland ought to be nicer to England and not really wanting to cropped up more sharply in the popular press. The Sunday Mail ran several pieces on the match, ranging from Scotland's rugby coach Ian McGeechan, who thought England's triumph "brilliant news", to "Pass the sickbag" from the editor of the sport phone-in. The opinion page was caught between the two, managing a mere two lines under the heading Nice Try, Maybe. "Well done England, it was a gutsy performance to win the rugby world cup in a thrilling final with Australia. There, we've said it."

The Sunday Mail's sister paper, the Daily Record, consigned the match and its aftermath to three paragraphs on page 34. That iconic voice of Scottish populism, the Sunday Post, opted for the same approach, tucking the game away on page 58 with only slightly more coverage than Partick Thistle v Kilmarnock.

So, not much change there; certainly not as much as was hoped for by those who thought devolution would transform popular attitudes. Yet indifference, mingled with a few genuine tributes, has largely replaced venom.

Yesterday's reporting of the victory parade showed up the new class lines of Scottish coverage. The tabloid strategy was to ignore the whole thing as far as possible. For the Scottish Sun, this meant nothing at all. Edmond Eccles, a wayward teenager from Alloa, dominated the front page of the Daily Record and the Scottish Daily Mail, which had nothing on England's big day. The Record took a mere 75 words to brush off the celebrations and the Scottish Mail little more. The Scottish Daily Express showed a girl with Union Jack knickers beneath the headline In Case You Had Forgotten. It was left to the Scotsman and Herald to put Jonny and the boys on the front page and run a full story.

Their coverage was laced with a certain reserve about celebrations that "verged on the ridiculous" and "compensation for decades of underachievement". The Herald complained about Scottish viewers forced to watch end less English jubilation and the forced Britishness of the BBC, which kept saying that it was a victory for all the UK. But the tone was broadly generous, strikingly different from 1966.

Scottish culture is in flux, caught between the anglophobic certainties of the past and a creeping desire to change. There are clear signs that the Scottish executive and parts of the media think anti-Englishness is immature and, at worst, linked to a wider tradition of sectarian hatred. Scotland knows it needs to move on - and it is moving on slowly - from a world where Protestants and Catholics took a break from abusing each other by abusing the English.

· Richard Holt, who lives in Edinburgh, is research professor at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, and co-author with Tony Mason of Sport in Britain 1945-2000 (Blackwell)

dholthome@aol.com