SO the SFA’s performance director believes our young players should be aspiring to “English top flight standards” (Sport, The National, August 15). Why not Spain, who have dominated the Europa and Champions League in recent years, or the Germans, who have more world titles than I’ve had hot dinners?
Must everything we do be seen through the prism of England? Truly, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!
The untold riches in England have destroyed our game and hamstrung England’s development. Players chasing money rot away in reserve sides and their potential is squandered. Arguably the greatest England side of recent years was the 1990 World Cup semi-finalists. Their manager had been in Holland and Spain, expanding his knowledge. Half the squad had, or would, play football abroad; again expanding their understanding of what a footballer was.
Our players should aspire to move abroad, where France, Spain, Portugal, Germany produce conveyor belts of talent. Our players may be financially poorer but they will be far richer in their ability and football knowledge.
Kevin Cordell
Broughty Ferry, Dundee
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The United States were founded on admirable ideals
I FOUND myself agreeing with a great deal in Cat Boyd’s article on Trump and the United States (Trump exists on a spectrum of American racism – he is not unusual, The National, August 15). Her point about Trump not being unusual in that society is particularly well taken.
For Trump chooses to act and speak like the typical “good old boy” that is so much admired, at least in the more unsophisticated parts of American society. It is incidentally no surprise that large numbers of women voted for him, for the sad truth is that Trump behaves just as they have grown to expect a man to behave.
In style he reminds me most of Huey P Long, who was enormously popular and steamrolled his way through the American political establishment in the 1920s, becoming Governor of Louisiana and then a US Senator. Indeed he was seriously discussed as a possible US President, until someone assassinated him on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol building in 1935.
Where I depart from Cat is in her description of America as “born in genocide”, though I fancy I know what she means. It is a reference to the overwhelming of the indigenous natives by America’s relentless expansion westwards. But in fairness such behaviour was far from peculiar to the US. In fact it was a feature of much of European colonial history, whether in Australia or South America, where the Spanish record is if anything worse than that of the US.
I think therefore that we should give some credit to the ideals of the early settlers in the northern states who created a pattern of small, independent-minded farming communities that initially served the new nation well. Sadly, it was led astray by the 20th-century drive for imperialism and the demands of the industrial-military complex. But the northern states had no economic need for slavery and of course fought a bitter and long civil war against the slave states, with abolition one of their aims.
If the US has a fatal historical flaw it lies in its imperial ambitions from the 1890s onward, and the resultant corruption of its early democratic principles. But that is the price they pay for replacing Britain on the world stage.
Peter Craigie
Edinburgh
AS the world helplessly watches on, in fear of which side of the bed the megalomaniac leading the most powerful country on the planet might awake, the violent attack in Charlottesville confirms a growing undercurrent of right-wing extremism that is regrettably shaping immigration policy on both sides of the Atlantic.
While the mainstream media in the US have called the president to account for his implicit support of such extremism, the UK MSM, including the BBC, have apparently decided to turn a blind eye to the influence of such parties in the UK and the Prime Minister’s deplorably repeated call to bring total immigration down to less than 100,000 per year in spite of the NHS and many private enterprises screaming out for more labour.
Here in Scotland, where a flexible immigration policy is not only necessary but critical both for the economy and the protection of public services, in attempting to demonise the SNP and the Scottish Government on almost every local issue that arises, the MSM distracts the public from objectively assessing the arguments relating to Brexit, especially those around immigration.
Why is the UK Government not seriously scrutinised for supporting massive arms sales to countries that employ British arms to wreak devastation on huge numbers of innocent people in other countries while the MSM in Scotland apparently refuses to look beyond the “divisive” label scurrilously pasted to a possible future referendum by those who would thwart democracy?
At this perhaps pivotal period in the history of Scotland, if not our planet, it is important that all professionals in the MSM reflect on their responsibilities to avoid blinkered partisanship and furtive manipulation by those who wish to create a “society” that fundamentally rejects egalitarianism.
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
WHILE watching the BBC coverage of the recent World Athletics Championships, I have noticed a significant difference in the terminology used. In the last three Olympics we have had to suffer all the presenters and commentators frothing about “Team GB”.
I personally put the use of this irritating idiom down to another slavish copying of American idiom, whose use in the current context of this country was unhistorical and unconstitutional. Over the past fortnight, however, we have heard the athletes being referred to as representing “Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. Are we to believe that overnight the BBC woke up to correct usage? Or dare we suggest that this term is being used now that Northern Irish DUP MPs are propping up May’s dysfunctional administration?
Gavin Brown
Linlithgow
I READ yesterday’s article about the Brain family and I can’t believe it’s starting all over again (Brains gear up for a fresh fight to remain in Scotland, The National, August 15).
In your next article on them, could you put a link to the Just Giving page, to make it easier for people to donate? They’ve got a long way to go to raise the money they need, and a quick link would certainly help.
Kate Corcoran
Skelmorlie, Ayrshire
The latest crowdfunder can be found at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/gregg-brain
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