Campaign for A Scottish Olympic Team
The Scotsman reports on the Scottish Nationalists drive to ramp up the campaign:
Mr Salmond acknowledged that there might be some athletes who preferred to compete in a British team but that is why he wanted to consult the sports administrators, to find a way through. And he argued that more Scots would have the chance to compete at the highest level with a Scottish team. He claimed that polls had shown that 78 per cent of the population backed a Scottish team.
Mr Salmond claimed that, at the last Olympics Scotland sent one athlete for every 210,000 citizens while New Zealand sent one for every 26,000 citizens.
He said: "The key thing in an Olympics is about participation and allowing a maximum amount of Scots to participate at the highest level."
Mr Salmond's plan amounts to a warning shot, fired across the bows of the BOA, showing that it that it might end up in a much worse position if it continues in its attempts to field a British football team in 2012.
Do I detect a teensy bit of bias in the Scotsman's reporting:
"Mr Salmond claimed"
and
"He claimed that"
Well he's correct isn't he?
See Sporting Devolution and The Campaign for a Scottish Olympic Team
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I'm surprised you didn't
I'm surprised you didn't highlight the following paragraph from the article:
A spokesman said: "The First Minster has made it clear in the past that he believes that the benefits are in the British team and he wants the British team to be full of Scots."
:-)
Given England's dismal
Given England's dismal performance last night the First Minister might be actually be onto something for once in his life.
I'm a bit thin skinned for
I'm a bit thin skinned for the sometimes aggressive comment section on the CEP, but regarding your link to the article about Scottish football fans, the author (who is Welsh?) obviously hasn't spent much time in Wales.
Attitudes towards the English FOOTBALL TEAM are very similar in Wales. There was a loud cheer last night at half time when the result from Croatia was announced. I must admit I couldn't resist a slight smirk myself.
It really is the media that builds up this resentment towards the English football team, that makes it something more than banter between too (geographically) close nations with a 'bit' of history between them. There is a percieved arrogance about the English team and it's followers, at least that's how the Welsh and Scottish see it.
Of course it could be down to size. Without sounding 'cheesy' Welsh (and Scottish people I'm sure) are just glad to be taking part in international football as it's been one of the few ways of expressing one's nationality on the world stage, and actually qualifying for anything is just a bonus! Whereas England have much higher expectations similar to the large nation states in Europe like Italy, France and Germany - which is quite understandable.
At the begining of each qualifying campaign before a ball has been kicked, I always intend to count the column inches given to each side in UK newspapers just to prove my point, but
a) I always forget, and
b) that would be quite a sad thing to do
(although now that Wales finally have 3 point after 3 matches and England only have four, I could always try this out at the next round of matches)
An idea for a new logo Gareth
An idea for a new logo Gareth - picture of a player in their national football shirt with the Union Flag on it with the words "Team Britain?" on the top and the word "Traitor" on the bottom.