“Brave England go down with pride,” “English roses fall for Saint Jonny,” “England robbed.” With headlines like these in defeat, one can only guess what an English triumph in the World Cup final would have been like. Strangely First Minister Alex Salmond was sanguine about that possibility. Before Saturday’s final, a spokesman said: "Alex is rooting for England. He thinks they deserve to win with the way they have turned things around.”
I’m sure one day all Scots will view a game involving England with the genuine warmth that is due a good neighbour. Currently, sympathy for their short-lived experience as underdogs, is as good as it’s going to get. That’s due in part to the insufferable condescension of English TV commentators, and in part to our own insufferable defensiveness – given oxygen last week by ex Sun boss Kelvin MacKenzie on Question Time.
I’ve spent the last three days in Kelvin’s home turf – the south of England – and it does increasingly feel like another land. Not foreign like Germany, but different like the Republic of Ireland. In Eire though, a Scot doesn’t expect to be treated as a full citizen. In London a Scot does – and a Scot is often disappointed.
On arrival, for example, I was cursing London Underground and First Western for installing ticket machines that proclaim “Scottish bank notes not accepted.” As a result the under-staffed ticket office at Euston was invisible behind a long queue of baffled foreign nationals and grumbling Scots – united in their exclusion from “our” capital’s automated transport system.
I joined another queue to make a formal complaint and to my surprise the queue of Londoners forced to hear every syllable of my complaint -- shouted through security glass over the hubbub of a busy station – was completely sympathetic.
“I saw that sign. It’s disgraceful.”
“I mean it’s not like your notes ain’t sterling, is it?”
“Your money is legal tender. You should insist on your rights.”
And to cap it all, helpful customer service staff expressed astonishment that the constant level of complaint by Scottish customers had not yet forced a change of policy at the top.
I had experienced an unexpected “Cheltenham” moment – when the Gloucestershire Question Time audience generously, spontaneously and unanimously booed MacKenzie and his anti-Scottish remarks.
Tempting as it was to leave the station fuming, I left with a smile on my face instead.
