THE HERALD REPORTS TODAY

Rugby supporters need to join in the national optimismKEVIN FERRIE December 27 2007
Broadcasting is always a bit of a dance with the devil for us hacks, but it was still something of a surprise when an attempt was made to "out" me on live radio last week.

Since his days of "wee scoops"

as a popular columnist with The Herald, that John Beattie has always been a bit of a dangerous customer right enough, but never having made a formal declaration of my leanings I still didn't see it coming.


"There he is . . . Kevin Ferrie of the SNP," the big fellow announced to anyone caring to listen.

There are worse ways to be pigeonholed, although I've never been a member of a political party, but it was an interesting conclusion to draw from an attempt to add a slightly different dimension to a discussion on the growing sense of optimism within Scottish rugby.

As I recall it, John had instigated it: he had been talking about an interview he had done a day or two earlier with his son, Johnnie.

The two-time British & Irish Lion had irritated the young Glasgow Warriors and Scotland No.8 by suggesting we were getting rather too pleased with what was happening in Scottish rugby, when neither the national side nor the professional teams have won anything yet.

The same applies to our football teams, yet on the news bulletins punctuating that very same Radio Scotland rugby programme were regular references to Aberdeen FC's UEFA Cup win, which meant that for the first time since 1970 three Scottish sides would be playing in Europe after Christmas.

Beattie Sr is, of course, right, we must guard against congratulating ourselves too readily, but there is a desperate need in this country for constructive thinking, something I know he also believes passionately.

We also discovered during the programme that while the four of us principally involved, as well as Hugh Barrow - taking part as a rugby historian - did not know what the Scotland team's longest winning run was, we all knew the longest losing sequence was 17 matches in the 1950s, before most of us were born. How Scottish!

Big John's "revelation" followed my recollection of a conversation during the World Cup with Euan Murray, the Scotland prop, when he was bemoaning the failure to teach enough Scottish history in schools.

That, too, is changing and there really does seem to be growing pride in Scottishness. Regarding party politics, the cynic in me has been amused watching Alex Salmond doing the exact opposite of Gordon "Macavity" Brown, materialising everywhere there is the slightest hint of good news. Yet things do now seem to be happening because there is no longer any need to kowtow to London-based politicians.

That would also have been true had the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats won the election. What makes the SNP seem different there, though, is that their best people aspire to Holyrood rather than Westminster in seeking to immerse themselves in Scottish matters.

While tending towards the view that everyone is entitled to keep personal politics to themselves, the truth - and just for the record I was merely pleased to have a hook for this column rather than perturbed or offended by John's comment - is that I am fiercely pro-Scottish.

In that context, while expenditure on sports development, UK-wide, should rightly be allocated per capita, I would observe that it costs as much to prepare Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish international teams as English ones. Consider, then, some of the disparities.

Since national teams contribute hugely to making us feeling good about ourselves that leads on to the work of one Carol Craig, to whom I was introduced by one of Beattie's fellow products of Anniesland rugby, Kenny Hamilton.

I know the politics of neither Hamilton nor Craig - though the latter does seem close to Jack McConnell's holiday chum Kirsty Wark, another BBC presenter - but if I could have given everyone in Scotland a Christmas present it would have been a copy of her book "Scotland's Crisis of Confidence." Essentially, it psychoanalyses an entire nation and it helped me crystallise my thoughts on this subject. My principal conclusion is that small nations actually have some advantages over bigger ones, but can only make those work if they have control over how they spend their money in projecting and supporting their best talent.

One final thought on the impact of broadcasting on the national psyche. In a year when the national football team completed a home- and-away double over France and Chris Paterson established himself as world rugby's best goalkicker, why was Radio Scotland putting out trailers for a national "Sports Personality of the Year" this month, which instead featured bursts of commentary from England's defeat by Croatia and Jonny Wilkinson performing at the World Cup?

This article was posted on 27-Dec-2007, 08:31 by Hugh Barrow.