The hatred from our sweaty cousins is largely one way. Personally I love Scotland & have no animosity towards them at all, I find the attitude the other way is often quite different though. Same with the Welsh. Murray winning Wimbledon is a fantastic achievement, & the fact that he's from these shores brings a smile to peoples faces. Those looking to pour scorn on those smiles are bitter ****ers in my book.
I wonder if people in Portugal feel the same about Rafa Nadal seeing as they are from the same shores I doubt it.
On the whole, its an inferiority complex borne of being invaded and pacified. The Irish didn't much like us until long after independence, and its much the same around the globe with former colonies. Lets just get cracking with Fracking and hope the resultant earthquakes sail Scotland and Wales off to independence just in time for England to keep all the Shale Gas money. Cheers Scotland, we've had the best part of the cash from the North Sea, see ya!
Wrong, it's what you did while you were there that is the source of hatred as far as Ireland goes. I can't speak for the Scots but lets face it, England stripped every penny from Scotland that it generated and is largely responsible for the state of their economy up there.
I'm very suspicious of any Jock who says they want England to win in football. This is where it all stems from with Murray - the interview he gave to Des Kelly with Tim Henman some years back, before the 2006 WC(?). I work with several Jocks, all of them sound, and they seem to regard us Scousers as sort of Celtic cousins, so I don't get it too bad. True enough, as three of my great-grandparents were Scottish (one of them hung for murder ), and I think most Scousers can trace some Irish/Scottish/Welsh ancestory. But my experience, last year, was that those Jocks did cheer on team GB in the Olympics, and I especially remember the evening that the whole messroom, Jocks at the forefront, cheered on Mo Farrah in the 10k. Must just be the name England, though the cricket is a weird one as my old boss from the office I worked in at Liverpool, a rangers supporter from Glasgow, said that when they played cricket as kids they always imagined themselves as England, but he always cheered on Australia, the WI and India when the played here in tests.
Historically, it was the desperation of the Scots to compete with the English that led to the Union after the fiasco of the Darien scheme that nearly bankrupted Scotland. It could be argued that the English Parliament rescued Scotland from its own folly... As for Ireland, the brutality there was incomprehensible but happened across the board, all sides committing attrosities (and there were more than just two sides), and casual maltreatment and financial exploitation which was endemic in the latter part of the English hegimony...
I see this argument a lot and I can't pick any holes in it per say. Murray is Scottish and he and the scots are entitled to call it a Scottish (not British) victory. But if they did that in my personal opinion Then Murray should not be given all this money from British sponsors (I'm betting a fair share of that originates outside of scottland) and congratulations messages from the royals etc... You can't have it both ways. Likewise this should apply to the English.... Well actually it already does. It's a little sad if you think about it: Murray gets so much support from the English (myself included) and the Scottish. But if an Englishman won Wimbledon some Scotts would actually be booing. Don't get me wrong though. I am a big Murray fan
If you go the rugby board there was an Irish fan on Saturday night denouncing the Lions' win because it wasn't an Irish XV. Not sure if that's how the majority of Irish rugger fans feel, though there was disgruntlement at O'Driscoll's omission. Point is, we shouldn't judge everyone on lowest common denominator. I've already pointed out that all the Jocks I know cheered on Team GB last summer.
