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Anyone but England?

Football is tribal by its very nature, and Scottish society has

firsthand experience of what can happen when groups of

supporters are divided along religious and political lines. That’s

why at Politics for Scotland, we prefer to keep politics separate

from sport.


With that said, it’s easy to see how international football can

end up being about more than just the game. If two nations are

already divided along political lines, a match between them will

inevitably take on added meaning.


Yesterday, we published a post on X criticising The

National’s front-page splash which expressed support for Spain

in today's Euro 2024 final versus England.


To be clear, we don’t oppose the decision of Scottish people to

support Spain in this fixture. However, we do think that

language used in the text is damaging to the cause of

independence.


For example, claiming that English people: “sponge off your

public services” is strikingly similar to language used by far-

right activists to describe immigrants in the UK.


Regardless of whether this is mean to be ironic, it makes

independence supporters look petty and narrow minded. Plenty

of Scottish people choose to holiday and retire in Spain.


At the same time, we do believe that there’s a point to be made

about why Scottish people support anybody but England.


A simple explanation is that Scotland and England are historic

footballing rivals. In fact, it’s recognised by FIFA that the teams

played against each-other in the first ever international match.


Most football fans don’t support their rival team when they’re

not playing against them, but you often hear the argument that

Scotland fans should support England because they are our neighbours,

or because both countries are constituent nations of the UK.


If you believe this, nothing is stopping you from supporting

England. The problem comes when people can’t just accept

that not every Scottish person does.


SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn recently appeared on

Good Morning Britain, where he was pressed on his lack of

support for England.


The hosts grilled him with questions such as: “shouldn’t we

support each-other? Isn’t that the right way for us to work

together?”


“Is it under zero circumstances that you could bring yourself to

back England?”


This fairly common attitude suggests that it’s not enough for

Scotland supporters to be indifferent to England’s team, they

must actively support them.


You wouldn’t expect a Celtic fan to support Rangers when they

play a team that isn’t from Glasgow. At an international level, it

would be absurd to suggest that Portuguese people have a

duty to support Spain. The countries are neighbours and are

even part of the same political union (the EU), but nobody

expects them to cheer for each-other.


Isn’t it enough for England fans to support themselves? Why is

anybody bothered if Scotland fans back them or not?


It’s likely that many Scotland fans oppose the English team due

to political reasons, and they have every right to do so. We’d

encourage those people to consider that the Spanish state is

known for its harsh treatment of Catalan and Basque

independence supporters before decorating their houses with

Spanish flags.


For us, pure footballing rivalry coupled with the refusal of many

to accept that we don’t actively support England, is enough to

make us support whoever plays against them.


We are not offended when England fans chant “F*ck off Tartan

Army”, nor are we outraged when they chant “F*ck off Scotland,

we’re all voting yes”, or “Scotland get battered everywhere they

go.” We accept that this is just part of football, and don’t believe

that England fans owe us any support.


Hopefully England don’t win the Euros, but if they do, we won’t

blame them for rubbing it in. We only wish that the faux outrage

will be left aside.

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