IT has been interesting to see the reaction generated by The National’s football-themed front page and the pelters you have been taking accordingly.

Firstly to explain: I am English. By which I mean I am English-voice-booming-through-a-crowd, “Jeez, that bloke is English” English. I have lived in Scotland for 25 years and I have got to be honest: no problem with the front page; no problem with the sentiment. In fact, it’s spot-on.

When I first moved here, people would say “do you like football?” and when you admitted that you did, they would ask who your team is. And when you answered, they would follow up with, “Aye, but who are your real team?” Which, as someone from down south – really south: basically French – was just baffling. “And what about religion in football?” they would ask, to my continued confusion. “Well, what about it?”

READ MORE: A statement on The National's Euros final front page

But it was the next line in that conversation that was the most interesting. “I don’t hate the English,” the person would continue, “I hate the English media.”

And, after all, this is football. I know this will come as news to some but, shockingly, sometimes people say nasty things. And you better believe that if England had won there would have been no shortage of “Manuel from Fawlty Towers, paella, matadors and Enrique Iglesias your boys took one hell of a beating”-style front pages on Monday.

In the end, it was the English media that meant I couldn’t watch English football anymore. One more ‘66 reference, one more conflating of the UK with England, one more reference to “our boys, our flag, our anthem" and I think I was just ready to boke.

And so, OK, you published a front page which upset some people. It was very soon compared with The Sun’s “Achtung” front page from Euro ‘96. Which was funny because a) that really was racist and b) it was actually that bastion of left-wing “progressive” ideals, The Mirror, that published it. But The Sun always gets the blame. Which is both hilarious and well deserved.

READ MORE: Front page did not reflect our inclusive and mature Yes movement

But now the media down south are upset. Not that they would ever go in for bombast or dog-whistle racism – or propping up a wretched, corrupt establishment south of the Border. Heaven forbid! In fact, many of the complainers remind me of those Tory MPs and party leeches during Covid: wheeling in suitcases of booze, “letting the bodies pile high”, bagging PPE contracts and cheating on their cancer-ridden wives, only to clutch their pearls and twinsets when someone mutters “Tory scum.”

And first out of the gate clutching his pearls was everyone’s favourite Englishman in Scotland, Alex Cole-Hamilton, accusing The National of racism. Whilst it is always nice to hear from everyone’s favourite MSP for Airbnb, I would advise him to wrap it considering the man leads a branch office of a party whose Shetland MP last week penned a bombastic editorial that was given the headline “independence is dead and good riddance”, whilst his representative from Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross spoke of driving “the scourge of nationalism” out of the Highlands.

The front page of this paper may not have raised the tone of debate in this country and it may not have offered much in the way of solutions to the coverage which that have followed an England win, but it still spoke more truth to power than client politicians shilling for their Westminster masters will ever manage.

And how lucky I have been, safe within the nationalist scourge, to be allowed to work on real problems rather than fabricating them for pathetic political point-scoring.

Peter Newman
via email