I feel that Zoe Williams has rather misunderstood the cause of Scottish fans’ displeasure at the singing of the national anthem by the English team at Hampden Park last week (The booing of the national anthem shows the vulnerability of King Charles’s reign, 18 September). I wince every time I hear an English sports team singing God Save the King, but my discomfort does not come from any republican sympathies; it is rather from the pain of hearing the national anthem of the whole UK claimed by England as its own.
As a Scot who identifies as both British and Scottish, I consider both God Save the King and Flower of Scotland to be my national anthems. When the former is sung by a team I do not support, I feel conflicted in my cultural identity and as though something of my Britishness has been unjustly anglicised. I believe this display of English dominance is a more immediate issue for Scottish people than anything to do with King Charles himself. I cannot ever imagine England being content with Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland singing God Save the King as their national anthem. It has long been suggested that England teams find their own sporting national anthem which does not conflate Englishness with Britishness and this feels increasingly overdue.
Katherine Arnott
York
