Readers' Letters - 'Anyone But England' attitude demeans Scottish fans

Can you imagine a crowd at Wimbledon supporting Novak Djokovic against Andy Murray? It simply would not happen. The crowd would be cheering on anyone from the United Kingdom, and for most, they’d be delighted if that person was Scottish because they don’t have the same “poor me” mentality, and they generally like Scots and Scotland.

Anti-English sentiment brings out the worst in us as a supposedly friendly, welcoming, tolerant nation. Wha’s like us? Fortunately, in sport, not many.

Brian Barbour, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

One nation

With Anyone But England sentiment growing amongst some Scots as England reaches the Euros final, we're assured this is all fun-filled, light-hearted banter.

Yet to many south of the Border, and including the sizeable minority English population in Scotland, it's at best uncomfortable and at worst can be perceived as targeted discrimination, even racist.

The ironic thing is that this jocularity/discrimination (take your pick) is one way. There's no or negligible Anyone But Scotland sentiment in England. If an England team doesn't qualify or is knocked out of a sporting fixture, the English invariably support another home nation, not abuse them.

My view for tomorrow’s match? Sure, support whoever you prefer, but don't forget that being pilloried with abuse rarely feels fun-filled and light-hearted for those being targeted.

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Passing credit

“Football’s coming home” proclaim the English fans and media, as we look forward to the Euro final against Spain tomorrow.

This is intriguing, as if it was anywhere it should be “coming home” to, it should be to Scotland and not to our southern neighbours. For it was the Scots who devised the modern version of the game as we know it. Without our civilising intervention, what England might have given the world was just another version of rugby.

What is now called the English Football Association (FA) was formed at the instigation of a young solicitor from Hull, Ebenezer Morley, and what he proposed would be seen now as a basis for rugby with extra violence.

A more civilised code did emerge, but the English game was still mainly a question of head-down dribbling. It was the Scots who had the notion of artfully distributing the ball among the players. This started with young men, from Perthshire and the Highlands mainly, who gathered at Queen’s Park in Glasgow in 1867. They obtained a copy of the FA laws and amended them to conform with an almost scientific blend of dribbling and passing. When they invented passing, these men had invented modern football. Far from being an English game, it was one that was conceived to confound the English because the Scots, being generally smaller than their opponents in football’s oldest international rivalry, could hardly afford to take them on physically.

Scotland’s interests in the Euros have long since subsided, and the English borrowing our history is quite a compliment, the only downside being that it is not acknowledged.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh

Naive Nato

No doubt the UK media, along with Labour spin doctors, will be delighted by pictures of new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky embracing.

Ukraine may not yet be in Nato, but it's clear that Zelensky , the most well travelled “wartime” leader in history, and his demands for more weapons and money, was central to the proceedings of Nato's 75th birthday party.

A more sober assessment would be this: Starmer's announcement that UK-provided missiles can be used to target Russia, and the terrifying news that Poland will also be striking Russia from Polish soil, means we are blundering into disaster.

The naivete of Western leaders is astonishing. And this is all under the direction of an old man who, if not yet ready for a care home, definitely needs to be in an assisted living facility. Perhaps that's what the White House has become.

Marjorie Thompson, Edinburgh

Blinkered view

“Scots tax gap ‘impacting’ on economy and investment” (your report, 11 July). Well fancy that! No surprise, though, that Mary Thomas immediately leaps to the SNP’s defence (Letters, 12 July).

Indifferent to a Scottish Chamber of Commerce survey warning that higher taxes here are a drag on recruitment and growth, Ms Thomas resorts to simplistic, tired separatist incantations about Ireland and Scandinavia having better standards of living than Britain.

Perhaps Ms Thomas would care to go on a fact-finding mission to Eire, to see for herself the cost-of-living and housing crisis there?

In the Nordic countries, both Sweden and Finland have politically lurched to the far-right in recent years, something Ms Thomas would not approve of.

Her claims that higher income tax in Scotland has resulted in “better public services and lower council tax than the rest of the UK” as well as “a higher standard of living” are deeply misleading.

Local authorities have been starved of cash to facilitate this lower council tax boast; look at our potholed roads and threatened closure of libraries, sports facilities and other amenities.

Better public services? This assertion would be hotly disputed by many of us who use them. Looming industrial action by public sector unions demanding yet more wage increases from the incompetent, profligate Scottish Government might finally shatter Ms Thomas’s illusions.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Healthy memories

Hugh Pennington begins his faulty bid to correct Leah Gunn Barrett (Letters, 12 July) by declaring that Clement Attlee was not charismatic, but when in October 1956 the Edinburgh University Labour Club hosted a lunch for our retired prime minister, we students found him full of rare and precious graces – not a showman, but effervescent and entertaining as well as oh-so-serious about political priorities.

That evening, the packed audience at the University’s public meeting was spellbound. So. he was certainly charismatic, though not a showman.

Disputing Ms Barrett’s evidence that Attlee’s government had not gone for austerity, Prof Pennington cites bread rationing coming in, but this was unavoidable because the US government did not like the arrival of a socialist government here and imposed tariffs on our wheat imports.Writing about being a young doctor of the time, Prof Pennington seeks to belittle the achievement and readiness to spend of Attlee’s government just three years after the war. Health Minister Aneurin Bevan later confessed that he had to stuff the consultants’ hip-pockets with gold to get the approval of the medical profession for the establishment of the NHS.

Jack Kellet, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Time to go, Joe

“The herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.” The words of Boris Johnson during his resignation speech on the steps of Downing Street.

For months he had battled away against ongoing criticism of his leadership and judgment.

But the drip, drip effect eventually became a tsunami and one of the great, modern Teflon political bruisers eventually had to admit defeat and stand aside for the good of his party.

I can see the same thing happening with Joe Biden now. The media seem to have made their mind up that he's holed beneath the waterline. The polls are depressing. The support of many of his colleagues seems sincere but lukewarm.

The manoeuvring is going on in the background to find a new candidate, even if many prominent Democrats have yet to publicly acknowledge it.

The Democrats simply can't allow the ego and pride of one individual to risk losing the election to Donald Trump. No man is bigger than the party, no matter how respected he is and what his many achievements are.

For Biden to behave as he is doing this week is just as bad as Trump sticking his two fingers up to the will of the people. This election should be an open goal against a scandalised and disgraced former POTUS who is like a drunk goalkeeper chasing a balloon

It's not a matter of if, but when Biden stands aside. The “men in suits” will soon be arriving at the White House and giving him the option of retiring gracefully and with his legacy intact. If he declines, things will get messy, and it will not end well.

The best thing Joe Biden can do is go quickly whilst he still has some control over the narrative and manner of his departure.

It's not too late for the Democrats to win the election, but every day this saga goes on, it only plays into the hands of Trump.

Do the right thing Joe. Take one for the team and let someone else pick up the baton and take the fight to Trump...

David Fernandez, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

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