World has moved on from Auld Enemy rivalry that’s now nothing more than a kick-and-rush irrelevance
THERE are a few outcomes you shouldn’t bet against when Scotland come to Wembley tomorrow night.
Andy Murray being spotted in the crowd by the TV cameras as a commentator says: “This time he IS allowed to support whoever’s playing England” with a cut to a canoodling, tartan-clad couple as the co-commentator chips in: “Those ugly goalpost-smashing scenes seem a long time ago, eh.” Followed by reports of post-match scraps on the Tube.
If Scotland lose badly, Gordon Strachan coming up with another cynical blast at his enemies and walking before he’s sacked. If England don’t win, Gareth Southgate saying how proud he was of the boys, which elicits screams for him to be sacked before he walks.
And if it’s a good oldfashioned, blood-and-thunder cracker, there will be calls, mainly from politicians, to reinstate the Auld Enemy game on a regular basis, because the Union needs all the boosts it can get as we wallow in the bad blood of Brexit.
Opportunist tub-thumpers will abandon Poppygate and christen it Remembrance Friday, the day we recalled how great these two historic footballing nations are.
A match we need to see again every year to remind the world who invented the game.
The calls break out regularly. After England’s 3-2 win at Wembley in 2013, a petition was launched in Scotland to have a rematch every second summer.
Naturally, Alex Salmond backed it, saying: “I’m sure everyone on both sides of the border would welcome the return of the world’s oldest international match.” Three years earlier, Scotland Secretary Jim Murphy asked the SFA to restore the annual fixture because it’s a “remarkable sporting event and a highlight of the football calendar which enhances crossborder cultural exchanges”.
Despite the reality of it generally being a sub-standard, kick-andrush event which was last relevant to football calenders given away in 1970s Charles
It’s a Prem side at home to a club from the Championship
Buchan annuals, which only enhances cross-border hatred.
Southgate has been bigging up the hype like Don King, claiming these Auld Enemy games are “along with caps and medals what football is all about”.
Even though many today view it the way former Scotland skipper Graeme Souness does, as a game between “two modest groups of players,” albeit “a Premier League side at home to a Championship one”.
The facts back him up. Those divisions are where the vast majority of both squads play and reinstating this fixture would teach these national sides nothing, outside of why so few British players can hack it abroad.
And why Scotland are ranked 57th in the world behind Congo and Montenegro, and England weren’t technically good enough to get past Iceland in the Euros.
Which is why, thankfully, there’s as much chance of bringing it back as there is the Watney Cup (ask your dad). The world has moved on.
FIFA and UEFA have hijacked every spare week outside of domestic football for their own games and the clubs would fight it. The players certainly wouldn’t want a new fixture imposed on their free summers and would pull out injured (probably through strangulation by their wife’s Versace bikini).
And, although some Scotland fans might welcome it, I’m not so sure that many outside the old English hoolies could get too worked up about it because currently it’s not even the Battle of Britain.
The majority of English fans would be getting far more excited about playing Gareth Bale’s Wales tomorrow than reigniting a rivalry that seems to belong to another century.