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WHAT a wild couple of days it has been either side of England facing Argentina in the World Cup semi-final.
From Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander telling Scots to drop their animosity towards the England football team and be “bigger and more generous”, to Argentina vice-president Victoria Villarruel describing England as “invaders” and “usurping pirates” in the build-up to the fixture, the heatwave really seems to have got to some. Is football not meant to be fun?
Western Isles MP Torcuil Crichton also pleaded with those in the SNP to “find it in their hearts to put political division aside” in the match and support England.
Two politicians indeed heeded that call to "put political division aside" but not in the way Crichton was hoping for.
Instead, his Scottish Labour colleague Euan Stainbank was pictured in a Westminster bar as he watched Argentina beat England with SNP MP Lara Bird, who has remained steadfast in following the “anyone but England” philosophy despite facing a tirade of abuse along the way.
In their "cross-party co-operation", the pair of them proved there is absolutely nothing wrong with a bit of light-hearted football rivalry and it was reassuring to see.
They come from two parties that spend their days at each other’s throats, that disagree deeply on what Scotland’s constitutional future should look like, but have still found it in their hearts to forget about that for 90 minutes and have a bit of a laugh at the auld enemy’s expense.
Scotland fans have been singing about Diego Maradona’s Hand of God for decades and so to see hoards of Tartan Army followers backing Argentina in the game was no surprise and why should it bother anyone?
The fun-loving picture stood in stark contrast to UK politicians falling over themselves to lay claim to the Falkland Islands on Thursday morning after an admittedly controversial banner was held up by Argentine players saying “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”.
That’s a debate for another day, but it is depressing to see an exciting game of football reduced to this needless wrangling about who should support who.
Some papers including the Daily Express still couldn’t resist trying to make a mountain out of a molehill after Tory MP Andrew Bowie posted on social media about his "disdain" for the "embarrassment that is Scottish nationalism" after the picture of Stainbank and Bird was shared.
Can’t we just settle this all over a pint?
Well, Bird and Stainbank certainly showed that’s what we should be doing. Football rivalry is healthy and we should all just chill out.
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