Wembley dream

»»Sturgeon reveals Tartan Army hope »»But FM warns freedom not guaranteed

timetable for lifting the rules on crowd sizes in England.

As it stands, 10,000 fans could be let into Wembley for the Scotland-England clash.

Four days later, England might be playing to a full stadium against the Czech Republic.

Sturgeon, at her daily Covid briefing yesterday, said: “I want to be in a position if at all possible to go to Wembley in June to cheer on Scotland against England. I certainly do not want to take away people’s hope for that.”

She added: “Can I give an absolute cast iron, 100 per cent guarantee? No, I can’t on that any more than I can on anything else right now.

“I certainly hope we can be in a position to be doing that, and I hope we come away from Wembley feeling really upbeat and positive as well.” Sturgeon’s national clinical adviser, Jason Leitch, warned authorities cannot give a certain answer on how much freedom we will have by then.

He said: “The flippant answer is that the UK Government chose 21st June because that’s three days after the game and they don’t want the Tartan Army to travel but that headline is not what I seek you to write.

The serious answer to your question is we of course can’t predict what crowds will be in that second week of June.”

The Prime Minister’s route out of lockdown in England earmarked June 21 for the lifting of all social restrictions.

Sturgeon set out her more cautious proposals one day after Johnson and did not set out a date for “freedom”. She wants to lift restrictions steadily while checking progress on the spread of Covid before bigger decisions are made.

All of those over 50 and with underlying health conditions are expected to have had their first jag by April 15.

With the vaccination total now approaching 1.5million, the First Minister said: “If I was to give you a fixed, hard and fast date right now, I would pretty much be making it up and I don’t think that’s the approach I should take with you.”

Sturgeon released the latest coronavirus figures yesterday which showed there were 798 new cases, just 3.9 per cent of the total number of tests.

A total of 1018 people were in hospital – 58 fewer than the day before – and 93 were in intensive care. There were 47 more deaths, bringing the total to 7053.