Scotland v England, World Cup Qualifying 10th June 17:00

[Super_horns]

Not a great advert for goalkeeping!

Good job Kane did what he is best at.

Would have never heard the end of it.

 

[Balls Of An Ox]

Not a great advert for goalkeeping!

Good job Kane did what he is best at.

Would have never heard the end of it.

Probably won't hear the end of it anyway..."ochh aye, you were so lucky" "ochh aye,we were robbed" etc...

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

[SALTIRE]

You guys are the masters of bringing ancient history up again and again, just ask Dirk.

 

[Cornish Piskie]

England surely heavy favourites due to them having by far the bigger population?

By that logic England should beat Holland. Sweden and Portugal with ease every time they play any of those countries. USA should be able to thrash Uruguay, Italy, France, Germany and Spain.

Doesn't work like that though, does it..?

This "population" thing is an oft used get-out clause by some Scots and frankly, it doesn't wash with anybody. I think it's trotted out every time a match against England looms because they have such little confidence in the team to get a result that they need to pre-soften what they feel is going to inevitably be another spirit-crushing defeat.

The flip side of this of course, is that on those occasions when the Scots DO get a result against England then they can claim the victory is all the greater. And sweeter.

Holland has a population comparable to that of Scotland (give or take) and they've won a European Championship and reached three World Cup finals. And if you take into account the number of people resident in England who would qualify for the Scottish national team by parentage, I think it's a pretty fair bet that you could easily double the Scottish population figure that could be drawn upon.

Bottom line? Population size has nothing to do with it. Any nation's success, or even their ability to compete, at international level should reflect the system that identifies and develops young talent, the strength of their domestic league and the overall coaching and development of players within that league.

If you take these factors into account, then England are the biggest underachievers in world football. We have one of the best domestic leagues anywhere on the planet, our game is awash with money and there is no shortage of young people in England who want to play the game. Surely we should do better, but we don't. I can't explain why. Perhaps somebody on here can.

Frankly, I don't care who is "favourite" to win any game. I certainly don't make excuses in advance for the poor performances of the England team to assuage any angst. Sure, I watch the game in hope that we will fulfill our potential. But the result will be what it will be. It's out of my hands and I'm not going to kick my cats if England lose. It's not their fault.

I have no gripe with the Scots. I wish them luck in getting a qualifying place at the next World Cup. But I do find it rather faint-hearted when I read this "Poor us, we've only got a population of six million people (conveniently forgetting the millions of potentially Scotland qualified people to draw on who were born in England to Scottish parents). We can't possibly win."

Tell that to the Dutch. See how impressed they are by that argument.

 

[St. Juste]

No, he's one of the few that aint

Only two of the starting line up were born outside Scotland and one of those, Anya, grew up in Scotland so is effectively as Scottish as Raheem Sterling is English.

St. Juste's main man Harry Kane with a good finish.

Well, it's not often he will be outclassed by Leigh Griffiths, that's for sure.

It was a rather odd game, it would have drifted to a dire 0-0 had it not been for 4 goalkeeping errors. I don't think we deserved to win, even if it would have been superb. It was a bold formation and it paid off to a certain extent. Scott Brown demonstrated once again why he isn't international class, either in ability or temperament and he absolutely should have been sent off. Fletcher should have started ahead of him, and been captain. Especially when England started his underling club mate. Like Henderson for England, Brown is unfortunately undroppable when fit. Our much maligned centre half pairing actually did okay until Kane lost them right at the end, but that was far more a goalkeeping error. The three players from today who will be Scotland mainstays are Tiernay, Robertson and Griffiths - hopefully Fraser too who should be starting. The rest are a bit meh, Armstrong had a poor game but still has potential. Gordon, despite two horrendous errors costing us the win, is still our best keeper and should still be starting - rather uncharacteristic from him.

Griffiths, undoubtedly the most chromosomally challenged of Scottish footballers, and beating off stiff competition to be the ugliest, is certainly not lacking in talent. Were it not for his laziness on the pitch, and unprofessionalism off it (he admitted to drinking heavily for several days after Celtic won the Scottish Cup) he certainly has the necessary talent to make in the EPL. He was playing well even prior to the scoring and I knew we had a great chance when calamity Hart was named in goals. Three shots on target and two goals. He was a complete liability and wish we had exploited it more. He even got a generous foul at 2-2 when Griffiths, around a foot smaller, supposedly fouled him challenging for a header.

It has already touched on but England were a bit dire, and only played somewhat decently for around 15-20 minutes in the first half. Their much hyped much vaunted players, to the shock of no one, completely failed to deliver with Kyle Walker, Hart and Smalling especially looking awful. Kane and Alli were contained until the very last minute. Nevertheless, we should certainly be embarrassed to concede to 'Ox'.

I would have certainly taken a point before the match but the circumstances render it a bit disappointing, either way I think our qualifying hung in the balance. Which is fine, second (without playoff) or third in this group isn't disastrous and both would be performing above our seeding. Qualifying for the World Cup from Europe is exceptionally difficult for smaller nations and we will do 1 in 5 if we're lucky - lets get some good results and improve our ranking. Regularly qualifying for a 24 team Euros should be our aim.

 

[St. Juste]

Rather than repeat what I said previously, I think the below two quotes completely blow out the water the notion that population and footballing interest do not correlate to success.

The smoking gun of every world cup winner since 1950 to have more than 40 million people says it all.

Additionally, I should point out that the Netherlands has more than three times the population of Scotland.

So give or take Scotland does have a similar population to the Netherlands, the same way England has give or take the same population as Brazil

The argument regarding people of Scottish heritage living with England is a complete misnomer - every nation has a diaspora. There is no evidence suggesting Scotland has more of a diaspora than anyone else. Indeed, the Dutch in particular benefit enormously from the Suriname connection - if you wanted an example of population having less of an effect, Suriname is probably your best bet. Absolutely extraordinary the number of players they have proportionally produced for the Netherlands.

England play Sterling and Hargreaves, Scotland play Ritchie and Martin. It happens, every nation does it. Indeed, we've suffered from it in a way few nations have - McGeady and McCarthy would both have had 40+ caps for Scotland had they not grandfathered it to ROI. Only the likes of NI and Poland routinely lose players they are pretty keen to keep.

By that logic England should beat Holland. Sweden and Portugal with ease every time they play any of those countries. USA should be able to thrash Uruguay, Italy, France, Germany and Spain.

Doesn't work like that though, does it..?

This "population" thing is an oft used get-out clause by some Scots and frankly, it doesn't wash with anybody. I think it's trotted out every time a match against England looms because they have such little confidence in the team to get a result that they need to pre-soften what they feel is going to inevitably be another spirit-crushing defeat.

The flip side of this of course, is that on those occasions when the Scots DO get a result against England then they can claim the victory is all the greater. And sweeter.

Holland has a population comparable to that of Scotland (give or take) and they've won a European Championship and reached three World Cup finals. And if you take into account the number of people resident in England who would qualify for the Scottish national team by parentage, I think it's a pretty fair bet that you could easily double the Scottish population figure that could be drawn upon.

Bottom line? Population size has nothing to do with it. Any nation's success, or even their ability to compete, at international level should reflect the system that identifies and develops young talent, the strength of their domestic league and the overall coaching and development of players within that league.

If you take these factors into account, then England are the biggest underachievers in world football. We have one of the best domestic leagues anywhere on the planet, our game is awash with money and there is no shortage of young people in England who want to play the game. Surely we should do better, but we don't. I can't explain why. Perhaps somebody on here can.

Frankly, I don't care who is "favourite" to win any game. I certainly don't make excuses in advance for the poor performances of the England team to assuage any angst. Sure, I watch the game in hope that we will fulfill our potential. But the result will be what it will be. It's out of my hands and I'm not going to kick my cats if England lose. It's not their fault.

I have no gripe with the Scots. I wish them luck in getting a qualifying place at the next World Cup. But I do find it rather faint-hearted when I read this "Poor us, we've only got a population of six million people (conveniently forgetting the millions of potentially Scotland qualified people to draw on who were born in England to Scottish parents). We can't possibly win."

Tell that to the Dutch. See how impressed they are by that argument.

Right, so your position is that population to success is not tangible at all? So why are San Marino and Andorra the worst teams in football and Brazil and Germany the best? Coincidence? The worlds largest footballing nations overwhelming do the best, whilst the smallest do the worst.

There are outliers, of course, this is sport. But no matter how much Scotland does it's unlikely we will ever have a team as good as Brazil, no amount of coaching or focus will change the fact that they have more than 40 times our population. They could field several teams better than our first XI - of course they could, it's simple maths. They are the largest nation in the world to have football as the dominant sport, and are the most successful. In Europe the most successful nations are Germany and Italy, again the two largest where football is the dominant football. Accordingly to you, it really could be Finland and Liechtenstein.

The thing with Portugal and Netherlands is that neither nation is particularly small - Portugal is more than twice the size of Scotland and the Netherlands more than three times the size. Indeed, in terms of footballing dominant nations there aren't that many bigger than the Dutch in Europe - so it's no surprise they are relatively successful.

As for Iceland, a rubbish footballing nation that has done okay at one tournament? Yes, that proves a lot.....

Still if population doesn't matter, they will be winning the World Cup in a few years. Let's see if that happens. You have to go back to 1950 for the last time a nation of less than 40 million people won the World Cup.

But no correlation, must be a complete coincidence.

It's hard to take anything you say seriously when you think football is the dominant sport in Indonesia - badminton is the most popular sport in Indonesia.

Both Mexico and Nigeria will become footballing powerhouses in the decades to come, the latter could certainly do with no longer losing diaspora players. Of course, given population doesn't matter, Latvia must have as good a chance as Mexico going forward - according to you.

Indonesia is actually pretty good at badminton. Even if football does eventually overtake it it has to compete with various other sports - the same reason China struggles. In Brazil, in Germany, in Mexico there is nothing that even holds a candle to football.

Iceland could double its talent pool every year for the next ten years and not come close to Brazil.

Population, interest in football and success is clearly correlated. Germany has a bigger talent pool than England, it's one of the reasons they perform so much better in the international stage.England has more people than Norway, and performs better on the international stage. The fact you deny this simple correlation is quite extraordinary.

Georgia World Cup winners 2026? Or will it be another nation of more than 40 million people?

 

[Leo]

Watched the game but have little interest in internationals. However I was surprised nobody made any mention of the National Anthem being loudly booed by the home fans (who, btw, have previous for this with other teams) and also the 'Jimmy Savile' chant directed at the England fans. A shower of tartan clad ignorant c*nts!

 

[Modernist]

Can't we just agree that we're both crap?

Scotland will probably not qualify, England will, then England will play a half decent team and head home early.

And so it goes......

 

[Dirk]

Can't we just agree that we're both crap?

Scotland will probably not qualify, England will, then England will play a half decent team and head home early.

And so it goes......

That goes without saying....

Watched the game but have little interest in internationals. However I was surprised nobody made any mention of the National Anthem being loudly booed by the home fans (who, btw, have previous for this with other teams) and also the 'Jimmy Savile' chant directed at the England fans. A shower of tartan clad ignorant c*nts!

I wasn't surprised that many Scots booed @ "God save the Queen". Haven't heard the "Jimmy Savile" chant but this is way over the top and I condemn such chants (the same I condemned those about some "German bombers" when England played recently at Germany).

But at least they had the decency to shut their mouths at the moment of silence for the victims of the recent terror attack in London.

 

[Cornish Piskie]

Additionally, I should point out that the Netherlands has more than three times the population of Scotland.
.

2011 census: Population of Scotland was 5,313.600
2017: Population of Holland: 6,466,735

Now, forgive my mathematics, but I'd be very surprised if the population of Scotland has declined to just 2 and-a-bit million in the last six years.

Be that as it may. There was a time when Scotland used to benefit greatly from "Anglos" (Scotland qualified players born in England) in the national team. Players such as Andy Goram, Don Hutchison, Bruce Rioch, Andy Gray, Stuart McCall, Matt Elliott, Bob Wilson.... and if you want to go back far enough, Lord Arthur Kinnaird, who was one of the founders of the Football Association was born in Kensington. He played for Scotland against England in 1873 at The Oval (England won 4-2).

The 11 countries that Scotland have drawn players from include: Australia, Canada, USA, India, Malaysia, South Africa and even Sweden (Richard Gough). It is relevant though, that more Scots internationals have come from England than any other source which only goes to illustrate my point.

Not only this, but until the Premier League era it was not uncommon for the best Scottish players to play in England. Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Ian St John, John Wark, Joe Jordan, Eddie Gray, Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer, Denis Law.... I could name more but you get my drift. Not too many Scottish born goalkeepers though. I can't think why. <cheeky wink>.

They came to England not only to benefit from better wages, but also to play in a more competitive league which would improve their footballing skills. This ties in with my comment about how an international team should reflect the national league in that country, etc, etc...... It's fair to say that Scotland's league has traditionally been pretty much dominated by two clubs and hey, some great players have come from those clubs. No criticism intended. But the lack of genuinely competitive football week in and week out would surely have been a factor in the thinking and ambition of those who left.

Few Scottish players of genuinely high quality.... nowhere remotely resembling another Kenny Dalglish.... are coming out of Scotland now. Certainly nothing to tempt a big money transfer to a major EPL club.

This creates a cause and effect situation. The Scottish league structure is an even bigger closed shop than ever due to Rangers financial fall from grace which halved the SPL into a one horse race. The knock on effect of an uncompetitive domestic league cannot be the crucible for "fire in the belly" footballers that Scotland has been rightly renowned for for generations and desperately needs to generate in order to seriously compete at international level. Scotland isn't producing high quality youngsters who would attract the interest of EPL scouts and so are not gaining the kind of experience that the likes of Law, Dalglish, Bremner et al benefitted from.

We saw a gutsy performance yesterday from the Scotland team, but even a poor England team could - and should - have won that match and even having done their best to throw the game away late on, still managed to snatch a draw.

OK..... I think I've made my point and hopefully given you some food for thought. I truly don't believe that Scotland's relatively small population is a bar to producing great players. It can be done and the Scots can be competitive, but it will take a wider vision than complaining about population sizes.

I'll leave you with one more population comparison to think on. New Zealand has a population of 4,242,038 at the 2013 census. Smaller than that of Scotland. Certainly not three times larger by any stretch of the imagination. And yet they produce the greatest rugby team in the world. Perhaps they draw some players from the even more sparsely populated South Sea islands which probably increases their selection base but not by much.

They didn't get that good at rugby by moaning about the birthrate.

 

[Cornish Piskie]

That goes without saying....

I wasn't surprised that many Scots booed @ "God save the Queen". Haven't heard the "Jimmy Savile" chant but this is way over the top and I condemn such chants (the same I condemned those about some "German bombers" when England played recently at Germany).

But at least they had the decency to shut their mouths at the moment of silence for the victims of the recent terror attack in London.

I've heard that the worst of the Scots fans booing of GSTQ came from one particular corner of the ground which was why Oxlade-Chamberlain ran to that corner to celebrate when he scored.

All this taunting and baiting is rather tiresome, immature and to be honest, I find it quite embarrassing when our fans do stupid things. I've always felt that whenever England fans booed the opponent's national anthem before matches, all it achieved was to wind the players up and make them want to beat us all the more. And mostly, they did.

I particularly squirm in my seat when the Basil Fawlty-esque "Don't mention the war" jokes come along. I hope you don't think we're all like that. Believe me, these idiots are held in very low esteem by the majority of England fans.

 

[Dirk]

2011 census: Population of Scotland was 5,313.600
2017: Population of Holland: 6,466,735

Now, forgive my mathematics, but I'd be very surprised if the population of Scotland has declined to just 2 and-a-bit million in the last six years.

Sorry to correct you here but the Netherlands have a population of nearly 17 mio and so St.Juste is right (The Netherlands FA is allowed to name players for the team outside the province Holland )

I particularly squirm in my seat when the Basil Fawlty-esque "Don't mention the war" jokes come along. I hope you don't think we're all like that. Believe me, these idiots are held in very low esteem by the majority of England fans.

Don't worry. I can differentiate between some stupid fans and the whole country. I know England well enough from visits since 1985 when I first came to the UK. I don't have problems with " a good mock" against us Germans (and I always laugh at Basil Fawlty's "Don't mention the war" ) but I feel sorry for some of those morons who are booing at the opponents national anthem. That's disrespect and I don't like that.
But it's not only some England fans I am also embarrassed when some German Fans are walking with the "Reichskriegsflagge (Imperial War Flag)" in France. Such stupid things of a few brings the whole fans in discredit

 

[Furry Beaver]

Yesterday morning i found out that i was going to be both a father and an uncle for the first time and today i still can't get over the crushing disappointment that has been burning away inside me since Kane scored the equaliser, i can't even bring myself to look at the highlights. I just want someone to hold me and tell me everything is going to be ok.

 

[Stevencc]

Well it's not, it's all downhill from here.

In football and in life.

Congratulations, by the way.

 

[Furry Beaver]

Well it's not, it's all downhill from here.

In football and in life.

Congratulations, by the way.

Thanks mate - what an emotional rollercoaster of a day it was!

 

[St. Juste]

Watched the game but have little interest in internationals. However I was surprised nobody made any mention of the National Anthem being loudly booed by the home fans (who, btw, have previous for this with other teams) and also the 'Jimmy Savile' chant directed at the England fans. A shower of tartan clad ignorant c*nts!

There are perfectly valid historical reasons why GSTQ is booed in Scotland, such as the origin of the song, and I fully support it being booed. Similarly, it should be booed when NI sing it. However, were it Jerusalem or something else then I wouldn't be too bothered and expect it would not be booed. Of course, the flower of Scotland was booed by England fans at the game, and at Wembley, which is entirely appropriate given the context of the song.

No other national anthems are booed by Scotland so I don't know what history you are referring to.

The jimmy saville chants were utterly bizarre, inappropriate and indefensible. I would have much preferred a reference to Allardyce for example.

England fans have a significantly worse reputation than Scotland fans, and for good reason. Although the incredibly tight security seemed to have stopped anything of note on this occasion.

But at least they had the decency to shut their mouths at the moment of silence for the victims of the recent terror attack in London.

Er, thanks? That was never in doubt.

Whilst the oldest international rivalry it's not Serbia Croatia or anything. The hatred is faux for the overwhelming majority.

2011 census: Population of Scotland was 5,313.600
2017: Population of Holland: 6,466,735

Now, forgive my mathematics, but I'd be very surprised if the population of Scotland has declined to just 2 and-a-bit million in the last six years.

Be that as it may. There was a time when Scotland used to benefit greatly from "Anglos" (Scotland qualified players born in England) in the national team. Players such as Andy Goram, Don Hutchison, Bruce Rioch, Andy Gray, Stuart McCall, Matt Elliott, Bob Wilson.... and if you want to go back far enough, Lord Arthur Kinnaird, who was one of the founders of the Football Association was born in Kensington. He played for Scotland against England in 1873 at The Oval (England won 4-2).

The 11 countries that Scotland have drawn players from include: Australia, Canada, USA, India, Malaysia, South Africa and even Sweden (Richard Gough). It is relevant though, that more Scots internationals have come from England than any other source which only goes to illustrate my point.

Not only this, but until the Premier League era it was not uncommon for the best Scottish players to play in England. Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Ian St John, John Wark, Joe Jordan, Eddie Gray, Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer, Denis Law.... I could name more but you get my drift. Not too many Scottish born goalkeepers though. I can't think why. <cheeky wink>.

They came to England not only to benefit from better wages, but also to play in a more competitive league which would improve their footballing skills. This ties in with my comment about how an international team should reflect the national league in that country, etc, etc...... It's fair to say that Scotland's league has traditionally been pretty much dominated by two clubs and hey, some great players have come from those clubs. No criticism intended. But the lack of genuinely competitive football week in and week out would surely have been a factor in the thinking and ambition of those who left.

Few Scottish players of genuinely high quality.... nowhere remotely resembling another Kenny Dalglish.... are coming out of Scotland now. Certainly nothing to tempt a big money transfer to a major EPL club.

This creates a cause and effect situation. The Scottish league structure is an even bigger closed shop than ever due to Rangers financial fall from grace which halved the SPL into a one horse race. The knock on effect of an uncompetitive domestic league cannot be the crucible for "fire in the belly" footballers that Scotland has been rightly renowned for for generations and desperately needs to generate in order to seriously compete at international level. Scotland isn't producing high quality youngsters who would attract the interest of EPL scouts and so are not gaining the kind of experience that the likes of Law, Dalglish, Bremner et al benefitted from.

We saw a gutsy performance yesterday from the Scotland team, but even a poor England team could - and should - have won that match and even having done their best to throw the game away late on, still managed to snatch a draw.

OK..... I think I've made my point and hopefully given you some food for thought. I truly don't believe that Scotland's relatively small population is a bar to producing great players. It can be done and the Scots can be competitive, but it will take a wider vision than complaining about population sizes.

I'll leave you with one more population comparison to think on. New Zealand has a population of 4,242,038 at the 2013 census. Smaller than that of Scotland. Certainly not three times larger by any stretch of the imagination. And yet they produce the greatest rugby team in the world. Perhaps they draw some players from the even more sparsely populated South Sea islands which probably increases their selection base but not by much.

They didn't get that good at rugby by moaning about the birthrate.

To make the mistake once is somewhat understandable but twice? And quite how you failed to notice the difference after googling the population is beyond me. Holland has never played a football match, it never will. What you're saying has the same validity as Scotland should be beating England because Scotland has more people than Cornwall.

That's an incomplete list and proves nothing. Some of those players played for Scotland because they weren't good enough for England, the same way Owen Coyle played for Ireland, but the likes of Goram always identified himself as Scottish regardless of where he was born. The same with Steven fletcher and Ikechi Anya who moved to Scotland when young and have Scottish accents. Scotlands biggest talent was born on the Isle of Man, but moved to Scotland aged 10 months - should he be allowed to play for us? Those from the Isle of Man could feasliby play for any home nation I think, same with the Channel Islands. Matt Le Tissier qualified for Scotland as much as he qualified for England. However, none of this matters unless it is compared to another nation - which you are not doing. Scotland does not benefit from a diaspora more than any other nation, recently it has harmed us more than it has helped us by losing first teamers to Ireland. Ireland and Wales benefit more from their disaspora than Scotland does. In terms of foreign born players few do better than France.

Richard Gough and Shaun Maloney are the two most Scottish people ever - the name says it all - of course they should be playing for Scotland regardless of where they were born.

And what is your point exactly? That Scottish people more to England more than they move to other countries? No shit, it's the only country they share a land border with. It's not only an obvious statement but a completely irrelevant one in the circumstances. Angus Gunn was born in England to a Scottish international goalkeeper because his father was playing in England at the time (similar to Jordan Rhodes) and he has chosen to play for England. It happens.

As for English footballl having more money than Scottish football - I'm going to have to sit down after that revelation. It's almost as if having ten times the population is some kind of advantage...

Scotland has a very competitive league that attracts proportionally the highest attendances in Europe. It isn't particularly competitive at the top at the moment but it is extremely competitive at every other level. The reason why Scottish players has very little, if anything, to do with competitiveness and everything to do with money. Er, obviously. It's not a bad thing, just a fact. I'm pleased Burke and Gauld chose to leave British football entirely and hope more players do the same but I have no issues with players going to England - I'd do exactly the same for the crazy money on offer.

Scotland haven't produced another Dalglish for the same reason Hungary haven't produced another Puskas. Football has changed, we haven't necessarily gotten worse but a lot of other nations have gotten better. Professional football has spread throughout the world, it's a good thing, but smaller nations like Scotland have suffered. We will produce great players in the future, no doubt about it, but you can't expect Dalglish every few years. Indeed, since Dalglish no home nation has produced a better player than him. Scottish teams won't ever attract huge transfer fees but the last two big money transfers were VVD and Wanyama

When was the last Scottish domestic game you watched? What you are saying about it is clearly incorrect, or at best incredibly narrowly focused, so I don't know why I'd bother debating it with you.

 

[Furry Beaver]

The Jimmy Saville chant first started from Rangers fans singing it towards Celtic fans in relation to their paedophilia scandal years ago, they also started singing it towards Hibs supporters in recent clashes which is rather bizarre considering Hibs don't have any sort of history of paedophilia, i think Rangers fans just like accusing other sets of supporters of foul practices as they are a shower of utter low life scumbags.

When i got the train from Edinburgh - Glasgow there were mostly England supporters on the bus and they were tanked up and patriotic but there was a good relationship between both sets of supporters and i doubt there were that many from each side who were looking for a fight yesterday. There were a few arrests at George Square last night but nothing that wouldn't happen on a normal Saturday night in the stab capital of Europe.

 

[Dirk]

No other national anthems are booed by Scotland

I can confirm this (was at the Germany vs Scotland match in 2014 in Dortmund) and it was a friendly atmosphere with no boos of the Deutschlandlied from the Scottish supporters ( unlike the English "supporters" in 2017, ironically at Dortmund again)

Er, thanks? That was never in doubt.

I meant those morons with the Jimmy Saville chant and not the Scottish fans generally.

 

[Stevencc]

I can confirm this (was at the Germany vs Scotland match in 2014 in Dortmund) and it was a friendly atmosphere with no boos of the Deutschlandlied from the Scottish supporters ( unlike the English "supporters" in 2017, ironically at Dortmund again)



I meant those morons with the Jimmy Savile chant and not the Scottish fans generally.

The fact that they didn't boo the German national anthem on that occasion isn't confirmation that they do not boo any other anthems besides the English one, Dirk!

It's not an issue, though, we boo their anthem and they boo ours.

It's a friendly rivalry and we enjoy being the dominant party (usually) in it. A little like Germany and England in reverse!

 

[Furry Beaver]

The fact that they didn't boo the German national anthem on that occasion isn't confirmation that they do not boo any other anthems besides the English one, Dirk!

It's not an issue, though, we boo their anthem and they boo ours.

It's a friendly rivalry and we enjoy being the dominant party (usually) in it. A little like Germany and England in reverse!

This is how i view it as well, i think the English like the Scots more than the other way round but there is no Scottish football fan who doesn't watch the EPL and almost no Scottish person who doesn't have a friend/relative who isn't English. The supporters chanting "If you hate the fcking English clap your hands" yesterday were mostly ignored because there isn't any real hatred there. The political divide is so clearly not just a case of Scotland against England as we have all seen from the recent election results either so it is more of a love to hate thing over anything else.

 

[Dirk]

The fact that they didn't boo the German national anthem on that occasion isn't confirmation that they do not boo any other anthems besides the English one, Dirk!

nit-picker

OK, I stand correct it and write: I can confim this for just one match I attended between Scotland and Germany (Maybe those "bastards" boo every other national anthem except the German Deutschlandlied because they love us so much ). Better?

 

[SALTIRE]

I certainly don't have friends or, god forbid, relatives who are English. Shagged a fair few English lasses though!

 

[Stevencc]

I certainly don't have friends or, god forbid, relatives who are English. Shagged a fair few English lasses though!

Yes but you are a knuckle-dragging, nationalist, maniac, Salty.

Most Scots are, thankfully, more enlightened.

I'm not changing my avatar.

 

[Dirk]

Yes but you are a knuckle-dragging, nationalist, maniac, Salty.

Most Scots are, thankfully, more enlightened.

I'm not changing my avatar.

Harsh words, steven. Makes him look like the scottish johnny

 

[Stevencc]

Harsh words, steven. Makes him look like the scottish johnny

He shares some of Johnny's more small-minded idiosyncrasies, Johnny hates members of specific religions (Islam) whereas Salty hates members of specific nationalities (Americans and the English).

It's not particularly dissimilar.

The only connection between them besides that is they both supports sides from Liverpool. But I won't draw any conclusions purely from this fact, you understand.

 

[Furry Beaver]

I certainly don't have friends or, god forbid, relatives who are English. Shagged a fair few English lasses though!

 

[SALTIRE]

I'm a lot older than that and no fibber like that character was!

 

[SALTIRE]

Yes but you are a knuckle-dragging, nationalist, maniac, Salty.

Most Scots are, thankfully, more enlightened.

I'm not changing my avatar.

 

[St. Juste]

This is how i view it as well, i think the English like the Scots more than the other way round but there is no Scottish football fan who doesn't watch the EPL and almost no Scottish person who doesn't have a friend/relative who isn't English. The supporters chanting "If you hate the fcking English clap your hands" yesterday were mostly ignored because there isn't any real hatred there. The political divide is so clearly not just a case of Scotland against England as we have all seen from the recent election results either so it is more of a love to hate thing over anything else.

There's nothing particularly wrong with that chant, it's a bit stupid yes, but fairly standard rivalry fair - I hear it plenty at St. Mirren. You would have to have some serious personal problems to actually "hate" your footballing rivalries.

The largest population of "immigrants" to the country is, by some distance, English people. You couldn't genuinely hate English people and exist in Scottish society.

 

[spireite]

To be fair, confusing Holland with the Netherlands is a very common mistake, especially in this country, where the 2 names have become (wrongly) pretty interchangeable.