Blair Expects Every Scot to do their Duty

The Facts:

On 6 May 1953 Mr Leo Blair's wife Hazel gave birth to a second son in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was given the name Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

He spent his early childhood in Australia before moving with the family to Durham. But he has his secondary education in the city of his birth at Fettes College, Edinburgh.

Yesterday he became another Scot to become all English saying:

"I support England very strongly, but if Scotland was playing - not England - but a game against someone else why [take the attitude] that I don't want Scotland to win when they are part of the United Kingdom?"

The thing is Tony it is just this sort of attitude that the English will happily adopt an Scot, Welsh or Northern Irish sports team of person as their own when doing well but always reject them when they start to wane that leads to the Celtic nations looking for teams of excellence to support, especially if we are neutral. That plus the fact that the English still go on about 1966. So the Scots have to keep reminding the English that they were the first team to beat the World Champions when they met in 1967. The same may eventually be true of Rugby from 2003 but the Irish take great pleasure in reminding the English who beat them first as world champions.

We also live in a multi-cultural society Mr Blair are you asking the Australians, Germans, French, Americans, Italians and others who live in England and are supporting the land of their birth or forefathers to support Ingerland? Or what about Norwegians, Austrians, Russians or New Zealanders who are merely supporting a team maybe they have some connection with, or maybe has some players in their league?

Last time I checked I was free to support Northern Ireland living here in Scotland. In fact the other Livingston fans applaud me for it. I also support Ireland in the Rugby whether at Murrayfield or, as happened once, at the Scottish Lib Dem conference with the party leader stood beside me.

So when all this jovial anybody but England support is out of the way at some point from the 24 June to the 9 July we'll either be hearing about the 40 years of hurt continuing or ending ad nauseum until the next World Cup or beyond. So allow the Scots their 4 weeks of pleasure Mr Blair, after all tis only a game of fitba.