James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
English football doesn’t obsess about 1966 as much as Scottish fans might like to think. My first post on this is here; Alex Massie here and Rob Marrs here have taken the subject further. Rob, being English, won’t shut up about 1966: Scots talk about the English bringing up 1966 far more than English folk…
It wasn’t so long ago when the English felt free to mock inhabitants of Her Majesty’s erstwhile and remaining possessions(start at 2m 16 secs)… ..and going further back still, most early histories of the Football Association refer to Scottish professional players in alienating terms: they were foreigners, come from outside to take the shilling and…
You may have read a BBC report about the police visiting the premises of Slanj Ltd, a kilt firm who also do a line in amusing t-shirts. In this instance, the police popped round on their own initiative, to warn the company that their “Anyone But England” shirts… well, read it for yourself! A company…
We’ve done it, at last, haven’t we: taken the silent and unanimous decision that Brian Clough matters. He’s made the step up: Brian Clough’s cultural now, gone from the close, sweaty barracks of football because he stands for England like Elgar and Dickens. The news about Clough isn’t in the tabloids anymore. It’s strictly broadsheet,…