Thursday, June 23, 2005

Andrew Murray - tennis wonderkind...

Listening to the radio, I have noticed how many times a drooling FiveLive commentary team are most careful to emphasise that Andrew Murray is from SCOTLAND - and not Britain..... "Murray from Scotland"... "Plucky Scot, Murray"..... etc, etc....

It's funny, but I can't remember Tim Henman - when he was regularly getting to the quarters and semis of Wimbledon - EVER being called 'The Englishman, Tim Henman' or 'England's Tim Henman' or 'England's great tennis hope, Tim Henman'...

He has always been known as 'Britain's Tim Henman'...... Hasn't he?

I'm all for national pride - so why, when an Englishman is successful, he is 'British' - and when a Scot is successful, he is 'Scottish'? And if the media start to call him/her 'British' - they are accused of 'hijacking' their own Scottish heroes...

You can see this happening all over sport today - for example, in F1motor racing. David Coulthard has a Scottish Saltire plastered all over his helmet - Jensen Button has a Union flag on his. When he changed it to a St George's cross last summer to support the England football team, he was assailed by an ITV commentator, demanding to know why he was being so 'un-British' and unpatriotic by removing the Union Flag - and replacing it with a "Red and White squiggle"..... The design was artistic, in the same way that the Union flag was, but Button still felt the need to explain and to justify it... Needless to say, he made Button feel embarrassed and uncomfortable - and sure enough, at the next race Jensen had replaced the St George's cross with the British emblem....
David's identity is strongly Scottish and that is perfectly fine.. when he is mentioned, he is 'The Scot, David Coulthard'... Button, however is always referred to as 'The British driver, Jensen Button'....

It is clear that as far as the establishment are concerned, Scottish sportsmen/women are Scottish, Welsh sportsmen/women are Welsh and Northern Irish sportsmen/women are Northern Irish.......
But what of English sportsmen/women? Well, of course, they're all from BRITAIN, obviously!!!!
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12 comments:

simon said...

When I try to explain to people over here that my country doesn't exist anymore, they have a really hard time believing it.

Their next reaction is always, why did we allow this to happen?

Well, bugadifino. But I guess it's always the minorities in any larger society who hold on to their culture and identity. Maybe it's an argument for Europe...the more we feel subsumed by a larger organisation, the greater the interest will be in reviving our English identity.

Scrapping the Royals might be a good place to start. I wouldn't lose any sleep if we were to break up the Union either. Four parliaments, none of which would have any jurisdiction over anything outside their own territories. Scotland would probably empty overnight.

10:15 am
Anonymous said...

I'm no cricket fan but I have always been puzzled by the M.C.C.

2:31 pm
Mike said...

Scrapping the Royals might be a good place to start.

Scrapping the entire toadying British Government would be a better place to start. Starting with Tory 'Mr U Turn' Blair as the first against the wall, on second thoughts start with his utterly awful wife Cherie Blair.

3:43 pm
The Crafty Cruiser said...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1668367,00.html

9:04 am
timesnewroman said...

Oddly I have exactly the same perception. Only from the opposite perspective. I tend to hear television and radio sports commentators talk about successful English Sportsmen and women as English, but Scots as British! Maybe it has something to do with the success thing, which you can't really associate Tim Henman with (grins)

Timesnewroman

4:32 pm
Anonymous said...

Hey there As usual you hit the nail on the head Could be hughely talented is hugely out wonder if 007 went up and eliminated the dodgy Spanish Umpire who Kept Malbandian in it during the fourth. Oh by the way Steve. Help me still can't get into my own blog am considering starting a new one

6:51 pm
Anonymous said...

I have heard it both ways-english being english and british and then scottish being scots and british and the same with the welsh and irish.

Living in america i have experienced the same thing. Everyone here always introduces me to their friends as being british when i am not, i am fully english no hint of scottish, welsh or irish in me. It annoys me alot because when i show them the true english flag they say no thats not the english flag, and then showing me the british flag they say that is.

i think its just something that is unavoidable, both in sports and in your normal day-to-day life. I mean how many people do you know say 'oh i love the british accent', i mean theres no sucj thing, there isnt even set english, scottish, welsh or irish accents as they all change depending on the region your from.

8:40 pm
Anonymous said...

England is not allowed to exist as a nationality in the minds of the leftist elite in Government. That's why the preposterous "Celtic fringe" is now central! And I speak as someone from Northern Ireland. I feel great sympathy for the majority of my fellow Brits that dare not speak their name.

11:19 am
Laura said...

Obviously. And notice how it's frowned on if one dares flys the English flag; i.e. cars, homes, etc. It might be taken as too offensive for some. Screw that! Nuthin' wrong with being proud of one's country.

8:21 pm
Anonymous said...

Alice,

The probelm is that the ruling Labour elite are anti-English. With so many of them part of the Scottish Raj, and the remainder vehement EUrophiles, England is seen as a threat to their great prject of destroying the UK. I think that English people SHOULD be proud of their country and that other Brits like myself, owe them a huge debt for the freedoms we enjoy thanks to the brave English. They fund the rest of the UK, they take all the crap, and yet they remain benign but perhaps too sedated to the selling out of their own land?

12:05 pm
Greg said...

Meanwhile in the Irish Republic we tend to notice a British tendency to claim Irish people as British whenever they do well. I wonder why?

Englishness was something deliberately played down by the British establishment from the start of the eighteenth century on - it was what was needed to convince the Scots they hadn't just signed up to become the junior partner in a 'Greater England'. It's a classic imperial gambit, really, reducing nationality to a toy for small countries - the Austrians did the same thing, and since the dissolution of their empire have wondered what exactly it means to be Austrian.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see the Cross of Saint George far more often. It's a beautiful, elegant flag, far more evocative than the gaudy banner more commonly flown here, referring back to an age when the English were preeminent in the European family, rather than simply heading an Empire that trampled half the world.

As for the 'Celtic fringe'? Yes, the idea's nonsense. The English are as Celtic as the Welsh, Cornish, Irish, or Scots.

12:37 am
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6:49 pm

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