Praying For England

A few weeks ago I caught a piece asking what teams Scots politicians would be supporting in the FIFA World Cup since Scotland had their customary disaster/triumph/humiliation/triumph/hit the post and trundled along the line qualification process.

It was hilarious to see the contortions these clever people got into in order not to say England. Even Ruth Davidson was at it, while suggesting the UK should bid the be hosts in 2030. Nicola Sturgeon mouthed “anyone but England” which was overdubbed with Liverpool on the news. The Lib Dem and Green chaps pleaded the fifth and said SNP bad and SNP good in unison. They have never yet been seen in the same room at the same time.

I will be supporting England against Columbia and if they are successful all the way to the final. As a card-carrying member of the Tartan Army, I have never had any issue supporting English teams in their endeavours. Admittedly it is easier when cricket is the game, though Auld Scotland does pump the posh boys at that now, but cheering on Gary and Gazza and Rio has never much bothered me.

Let me give you three reasons, the same number as they have lions on their shirts, why all Scotland should be praying and braying for England tonight:

That World Cup Song

We were on the march with Ally’s Army and we had a dream. England had New Order and playing for England. Everyone knows The Proclaimers with Sunshine On Leith have penned the best club football song ever but New Order, John Barnes et al take top spot for tunes turned out in praise of national teams. 

We would be worse

Admittedly the daft rhetoric and hyperbolic reactions to every bowel movement of Harry Kane have been muted this tournament, so we can have few complaints about jingoism from the lovely lads and lassies on the sofas. For every Gary Neville there is a Martin O’Neill and in the end the score at the end of the match (see Belgium) arrests the understandable temptation to get that early tattoo.

Were Scotland in the mix we would be much worse: more unrealistic, more grumpy, more chippy. Certainly more chippy. If any of you are thinking that is not so, remember we had a bus birling round Hampden Park BEFORE we went south in 1978. And boy did we go south, those terrific Peru strips will have made many a middle-aged man’s blood run cold.

We would be insufferable if we got through the group stages (fat chance) and our pundits would be in tartan heaven.

When you reflect, it really is better we are not there. 

London

London is the best city on the planet, it is part-owned by all of us, and we can get there in 55 minutes for as little as thirty quid. The Southbank, The Tate, Chinatown, Trafalgar Square (where they WILL let us have a dip in the fountains) and all manner of other things are simply the best.

I am biased as I work there a lot but as a tourist the other Saturday the British Library, The British Museum and walking everywhere was a day that cost us nothing but a sandwich lunch in the library café.  

So I will be supporting England in their endeavours to get to the final of the 2018 FIFA World Cup for those three reasons, but mostly because it is the right thing to do. The grown up thing to do. Not as enthusiastically as I would Scotland and with a wry smile when I hear guff like “we are playing the best football of the tournament” 20 minutes into a match against the kind of diddy team we always fashion a proper humiliation against.

Yes. All the way to the final. Then they are on their own. They can’t be winning it, can they? That would be too much.