JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: Is it time for us to rethink the tired old 'anyone but England' routine?

On the day of the General Election last week, a Scotsman stood on England’s most famous tennis court and felt the love. It was palpable; overwhelming. 

Not for the first time in SW19’s cauldron of emotions, Andy Murray was in tears.

Who wouldn’t be? Some of the greatest players in the game’s history were there to salute him as he bade farewell to Wimbledon.

His parents were there, his kids, his wife. 

And, no less significantly, the English were there too. In their thousands. Many waving the Union flag.

They wanted this talismanic figure from Scotland’s back of beyond to know what they thought of him, that he was the architect of sporting memories they will cherish forever.

True, it was a rocky road into English hearts. All that teen petulance and sourness, those guttural cries of frustration or elation – not like that well-mannered Henman boy whose British No.1 slot Murray had snatched away.

It didn’t help either that, in those brattish days, he let slip that he’d be supporting ‘anyone but England’ in the 2006 World Cup.

What was this nonsense, the Wimbledon crowds were within their rights to ask. 

Were they really supposed to cheer him on in his quest to become the first British man to win the tournament since the 1930s as he wished defeat on their national football team every time and everywhere?

Murray, of course, was simply parroting the rot he had grown up with. 

I grew up with it too. As a young man in 1990, surrounded by English-baiting Scots in a pub in Aberdeen, I cheered with the rest of them as we watched West Germany take care of business in the World Cup semi-final penalty shoot-out.

England’s bid to reach their first final since 1966 was over, their hearts were broken, and we Scots raised a pint of Tartan Special to that.   

I can still hear the roars that greeted Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle’s misses from the spot. I contributed to them. It was not my finest hour. Worse, I knew it.

I knew deep down that we diminished ourselves as we bathed in our targeted brand of schadenfreude and that it painted us as petty, even spiteful.

Even back then, the exculpatory claim that this was just about football rang hollow. It was about a rivalry that pre-dated the game.

It was about resentment, wounded pride, grievance. It was an ugly small nation form of small man syndrome.

‘Remember Bannockburn, 1314,’ the Scots banners used to read at our showdowns with England at Wembley.

Only a small nation could possibly unfurl such foolishness at a football match.

 Imagine if English fans waved flags emblazoned with the names of the many battles in which Scots were routed.

The ‘anthem’ we sing at football tournaments evokes the same 710-year-old skirmish – defining us in the eyes of all our opponents in the terms we apparently wish to be defined: people from northern Britain who have a problem with the English.

It seems clear to me now that, far from being ring-fenced around football, the anti-English euphoria I unwisely participated in was a gateway sentiment to Scottish Nationalism.

Certainly the more that movement grew over the past two decades, the more frantically I backpedalled on any desire to see our neighbours across the Border come a cropper to anyone but Scotland on the football field.

After our national side found themselves among the earliest fallers in Euro 2024, it seemed entirely natural to root for the only home nation left in the tournament.

Why wouldn’t I get behind a team from these same isles, led by an admirable, thoroughly decent coach who knows exactly what it is like to miss from the spot in a shoot-out? He did so against Germany in Euro 96.

The story of his success thus far as England manager is a classic one of sporting redemption, a saga unfolding over decades, laced with pain and self-reproach, yet promising glory in its final chapters.

I’m acutely aware that, in pubs all around Scotland, Gareth Southgate’s missed penalty in 1996 would have been met with the same joyful guffaws that I gave his fellow players Pearce and Waddle six years earlier. 

The dismal sight of his dejection as he walked back to his teammates will have softened few hearts that beat to the mantra ‘anyone but England’.

Which is why, in a way, his team’s progress to the final of Euro 2024 represents a form of redemption for me too. 

I’m ashamed of my attitude to the English team in 1990 and feel rotten that their failure brought me pleasure.

I can’t change what happened, but I can do better now by throwing my wholehearted support behind Southgate’s men when they face Spain in Sunday’s final.

Many of my compatriots, I’m sure, will view things differently. 

They will tell you, as they always do, that England still haven’t belted up about 1966 – that uppity prattle about 2024 for decades to come is the last thing we need.

They will tell you the commentators are insufferably biased (as if the Scots ones aren’t) and delusional (yup, ours too).

And, if you can bear to have your ear bent long enough, they will probably remind you that Scotland actually defeated England in their first meeting after 1966, which means we were the best team in the world, but do those English sports casters credit our global domination? Never. 

For my money, the commentators’ only crime in 2024 is their lack of faith in a manager who has led England to two Euros finals on the trot.

If Scotland ever find one to lead us out of the group stages, there will be statues.

Who knows where Andy Murray now stands on the issue which made him hard for the English to stomach in the early days of his career.

Now that he knows how treasured he is, how proud Britain is of its two-time Wimbledon champion, does he feel a little foolish?

In his native Scotland, many of us have been there.

But a week is a long time in sport, as it is in politics. In the days since that unforgettable farewell, England have brushed aside Switzerland and the Netherlands, and Scotland has brushed aside the SNP, concluding that, in all but nine constituencies, it is better off without them.

Independence, for now, is off the table. We are concentrating on being a union again. 

Might this, then, be an appropriate juncture for a national rethink on the whole tired ethos of Scottish antipathy towards English sporting endeavours?

Might the Centre Court love-in with Andy Murray be telling us something?

He was a daft laddie once, but it was the man, the champion, the crowds were celebrating, not the boy.

Tough gig: he grew up in public. It’s time the rest of us did in front of our TV screens.