Once upon a long time ago, a certain President of the Scottish Rugby Union decided to pick a fight with the press corps and basically accused us all of wanting Scotland to get beaten to further some agenda or other. I wasn’t having that, not least because I didn’t know anything about agendas, hidden or otherwise, and though I’m normally a very mild-mannered chap, the said President got both barrels large from me.
I distinctly recall my words to him, not least because a fellow hack took a shorthand note of them. In short I told him he was a disgrace to his office – though not as politely as that – and I wanted an apology because “I never want Scotland to get beaten at anything, not even tiddlywinks.” He did eventually apologise but he never did get the usual tributes in the press when his presidency ended.
Being a supporter of Scotland at any sport is to know quite often the exquisite anguish of having your hopes raised and then dashed, often at the last minute. In the past fortnight alone we have seen humiliation on the field of play for our three remaining teams competing in European football, our national rugby league team humbled by Italy, and our national rugby women’s team so cruelly robbed of victory on successive weekends – I’ll be coming back to them.
