Grounds For Complaint

IN THE HIGHLY UNLIKELY event that Scotland ever breaks away from England to become an adult, grown-up, Independent country, what I will be talking about here just might happen. However, what I have learned about Scottish political and sporting governance in my 78 years and counting on this earth leads me to believe – I will certainly never see it – and in any case, The Scottish Establishment will most-likely never allow it.

Fully-formed nations nearly all have a National Stadium, usually in their capital city; this is where their national sports teams play their home games. It makes sense to have such a prestigious venue, best practice indicates it should be controlled by the national government, or the government of the capital city – this, however, is not the British way.

British Governments don't object to taking money off big sporting occasions, in the form of direct or indirect taxation. Against this, if a sport's governing body can find a big enough calibre gun to hold to their head, the government might be inclined to chip-in to help such a governing body – provided they have the word England, or British in their name.

But, we Jocks, and our Taffia friends in Wales, we are mere colonials and not entitled to the full largesse of access to London's money – even the money they have syphoned off us to fund “British” or “United Kingdom” projects.

The British Establishment does not even recognise Scotland as a nation – to them we are “North Britain” - a colony, a good place to go shooting, fishing or golfing, although, the natives speak with a strange accent and tend to deep fry every food – but are great shock troops when there is a need to invade an inferior nation; so the idea of allowing “the Jocks” or “Sweaties” (Sweaty Socks!!) to have their own national stadium – it isn't going to happen, unless they build it themselves – and they don't have a good record on things like that.

It doesn't help either than the one thing we Scots can give every other nation under the sun lessons in is fighting among ourselves. Elsewhere, should an individual do something special, there is general happiness in their locality, a pride in his or her achievements. In Scotland, the local reaction is more likely to be a grudging: “him – Ah kent his faither”.

The only two team sports in Scotland able to pull-in a large audience for big games are Football and Rugby Union. Here again, there is a problem. Football is seen as “The Glasgow Game” - despite the Vale of Leven's primacy in the game's youth, the Dear Green Place is seen as its heartland. Rugby Union is very-much seen as “Edinburgh's Game” - even though The Borders is regarded as the true heartland.

Thus, the Scottish Rugby Union owns and operates the 67,000-plus capacity Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, while, some 40 miles west, in Glasgow, the Scottish Football Association owns and operates the near 52,000 capacity Hampden Park. And seldom shall the twain ever meet.

Clearly, in a nation of just over 5,000,000 people, mostly living in the central belt, it is absurd to have two “National Stadiums” - each almost exclusively for the use of one specific sport. But, that's Scotland. The SFA has to have its main ground in Glasgow, for no other reason than there has to be a neutral venue for big finals, since one or other of the two main Glasgow-based clubs will be involved. Similarly, Edinburgh always has been a Rugby Union city, so its Internationals and othr big games have to be held there.

Neither stadium is “State of the Art”. Hampden was already decrepit when piecemeal re-development began in the early 1980s. This work continued until the stadium, as it currently exists was opened in 1999. At its peak, before World War II, Hampden was the largest stadium in the world, with a record attendance of just shy of 150,000. Today, its capacity is just over one-third of that, but, with only “tarting-up”, particularly for the hosting of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, “The Old Lady” as Hampden is known, is definitely showing her age.

Murrayfield is, although more-modern looking than Hampden – it doesn't have those relics of the old running track behind each goal, for instance - if anything basically older, however, to be fair to the SRU, they have been aware of the stadium's short-comings for some time, but, have lacked the cash it requires to bring it quickly up to 21^st century standard. They are, however, actively looking to solve this long-standing problem, but, the Union's dire financial position makes this still a problem which will not be quickly or easily solved.

Then there is the slight obstacle of the Union having built The Hive, next to the main stadium, as a home for their subsidiary side, Edinburgh Rugby.

So, assuming we ever see what many regard as the ideal solution to the stadium problem – a new, purpose-built truly National Stadium, built on a greenfield site somewhere around Stirling. Pretty near the centre of the nation, with good rail and road links – a stadium able to host major Football and Rugby Union matches.

Here's what would probably happen:

• The forces of “Aye Beenism” around both codes of Football would be up in arms, immediately the new stadium was announced

• The Councils in both Edinburgh and Glasgow would rush to the barricades, black affronted at losing their big ground

• Since this hypothetical National Stadium will not be built before Independence – the opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament would be up in arms at such a flagrant and to them unnecessary waste of public money

• In any case, given the Scottish Civil Services track record on major infrastructure projects – which generally means delay and cost over-runs – the new stadium would cost far-more than budgeted for and be years late if it was ever finished

I fear we will be applying a metaphorical strip of Elastoplast to both Hampden and Murrayfield for at least the next century.