The Pre-Pubescent Unionist

You know, I never made it in Scottish rugby. Couldn’t hack it, wasn’t up to it. That’s why I left to join a French professional club.

That was the argument used by my SNP chum to expose my views on Scottish nationalism. My views were invalid because I never made it in Scottish rugby.

The next attack was on my age and, bizarrely, my pubescence. My views, my beliefs, are not valid because I am 19 and therefore not fully pubescent. I was quite game for sending a photo at this point and letting my nationalist pal judge for himself whether I was pubescent enough to hold views on the subject.

I was told that I have never worked and my views are therefore invalid. I have indeed worked.

My views, my beliefs, are also invalid because I have never “paid taxes, had a mortgage, domestic bills, been responsible for others welfare...” I wasn’t aware that my thoughts on Scottish nationalism would only become valid at a certain age and after fitting several criteria.

Given that most 19 year olds have not fulfilled these obligations, perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed a vote. Or maybe they should be allowed a vote, heck let’s give it to 16 year olds too, but no one under the age of, say, 25 should be allowed any views.

I questioned whether 19 year old SNP members would be allowed any views. 19 year old SNP members do have a massive advantage over me, of course – they’re in the right and I am simply wrong.

So I’ll be spending the rest of the afternoon trying to get better at rugby – maybe by tea-time my tackling will have improved enough to validate my right to have views on certain subjects. Maybe I’ll be closer to adulthood by that point and be better endowed and it will become okay to hold views, even if others disagree with them.

I can’t wait till I’m all grown up.

On Encountering the 'Cybernats'

This evening I couldn’t help but engage in debate with what is commonly known as the ‘cybernat’. This is an internet dweller who scurries into the open to challenge anything said against Scottish nationalism before scurrying away again.

What had I done? I re-published excerpts from George Orwell’s essay ‘Notes on Nationalism’. Nothing more, nothing less. Having read widely on the subject of nationalism, Orwell's thoughts struck a chord. 

The responses ranged from the bizarre to the sensible and several revealed much Scottish nationalism to go much deeper than the desire for Scotland to be independent.

I shall attempt to guide you through the twisting and the turning of the ‘cybernat’ when challenged. One thing that Orwell mentioned was confirmed: “The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organisation, fills him with uneasiness which he can relieve only by making some sharp retort.”

At first, some nationalists clearly realised that they didn’t want to be associated with what Orwell was talking about. This is encouraging. So several deflected attention to the Prime Minister. For a while, ‘nationalist’ became a dirty word – David Cameron is the nationalist. When I pointed out that the Scottish National Party is inescapably nationalist, these few cybernats scurried away.

Next up they tried to escape nationalism by claiming that the SNP actually fit Orwell’s definition of patriotism rather than nationalism. Here is what Orwell says:

                [By] “‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but which has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”

More power, more prestige. The cybernat response to Orwell’s words? The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320. This is the just first time that this particularly worrying strand of ‘Braveheart’ nationalism appeared. This failure to recognise that, impressive as the Declaration is, Scotland has moved on. There are better arguments for independence than the Declaration of Arbroath.

Are anti-nationalist views ‘misinformed’? Apparently, an independent Scotland is the logical end point to all this and, when everyone knows the facts, then they too will agree. If your beliefs are of a Unionist nature, sorry, you are ‘misinformed’. As if there is some final answer that is ‘correct’, like a maths puzzle and we’re all just trying to work it out and we’ll all get there eventually. I’m one of the slow ones! Thank goodness there are those who have already solved the puzzle and know the right answer. They can inform me.

Question: ‘Would we have greater or less individual power in an independent Scotland?’

Answer: I don’t know. My response to this was, ‘I would have greater individual power with no government at all but no one is advocating that’.

The Proclaimers wrote a lovely song about the Scots going ‘Cap in Hand’ to the English. I’m listening to it now, it talks about when Hibs goalies were good. This phrase is so unbelievably demeaning to Scotland. It basically suggests that Scotland is so weak that they have to go ‘cap in hand’ to the English. If highlighting the weakness of Scotland is an argument for independence then forgive me if I rest my case.

Common sense broke out around half past nine, with discussion centring on whether independence would leave Scotland in a better situation. Obviously no conclusion was reached. So the cybernats then started to wage a class war. “For us to get a better UK deal would take removal of every single Tory in Westminster.” Ah, so this is what it rests on. The Tories hate Scotland and are deliberately grinding it into the ground!

I was encountering a nationalism based on the dislike of one political party.

My point that it is very possible to be Scottish, British and a Tory was rubbished, with Malcolm Rifkind and Michael Forsyth attracting much ire. I asked if they were anti-Scottish but apparently they’re ‘counter-Scottish’ which is an Orwellian shifting of language if ever I saw one.

Orwell said that Scottish nationalism often takes the form of ‘a class hatred tirade against the B.B.C. accent.’ And sure enough, the BBC are apparently biased. They call Andy Murray Scottish when he loses and British when he wins. A call to arms!  Comrades, claim back your country and your tennis players!

The debate descended into bringing up the Highland Clearances and turning it into what I interpreted as an England vs. Scotland event – simplified history.

In the end, it was argument for the sake of argument. I am guilty for not being able to resist a scrap. This remains an issue of debate and there is nothing dialectical about it. Orwell: ‘all nationalist controversy remains at the debating-society level. It is always entirely inconclusive, since each contestant invariably believes himself to have won the victory.’ I’m not trying to win anyone over to what I see as a correct point of view. I don’t see anyone else’s views as ‘misinformed’ and subject to change when I lay out all the evidence. It is good fun, however, and the ideals of a proper debate are worth sticking to for their own sake. Sadly, not all agree. The final word on this Thursday evening belongs to Christopher Hitchens who said, “My own opinion is enough for me and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, anytime, and anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.”

Orwell on Nationalism

Having long been an admirer of George Orwell – who isn’t? – I came across an essay he wrote on nationalism. After reading it, there’s nothing more that needs to be read on the subject, so precise is his understanding of this movement. The clarity of his prose is unrivalled. It is a long essay so I have selected and general points about nationalism.

“There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the U.S.S.R. without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. When one grasps the implications of this, the nature of what I mean by nationalism becomes a good deal clearer. A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist – that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating – but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him.”

[Nationalism is] “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nationa or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.”

[By] “‘patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”

“Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakeably certain of being in the right.”

“Obsession. As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit. It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance. The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organisation, fills him with uneasiness which he can relieve only by making some sharp retort. If the chosen unit is an actual country, such as Ireland or India, he will generally claim superiority for it not only in military power and political virtue, but in art, literature, sport, structure of the language, the physical beauty of the inhabitants, and perhaps even in climate, scenery and cooking. He will show great sensitiveness about such things as the correct display of flags, relative size of headlines and the order in which different countries are named.”

“All nationalists consider it a duty to spread their own language to the detriment of rival languages, and among English=speakers this struggle reappears in subtler forms as a struggle between dialects. Anglophobe-Americans will refuse to use a slang phrase if they know it to be of British origin, and the conflict between Latinizers and Germanizers often has nationalists motives behind it. Scottish nationalists insist on the superiority of Lowland Scots, and socialists whose nationalism takes the form of class hatred tirade against the B.B.C. accent and even often gives the impression of being tinged by belief in sympathetic magic – a belief which probably comes out in the widespread custom of burning political enemies in effigy, or using pictures of them as targets in shooting galleries.”

“The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied. Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. All nationalist controversy is at the debating-society level. It is always entirely inconclusive, since each contestant invariably believes himself to have won the victory. Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connection with the physical world.”

There Are Two Types of Sports Journalist

There are two types of sports journalist. To outline my thoughts I will take two Sunday Times rugby writers, Stephen Jones and Stuart Barnes. You would be forgiven for thinking that the two types are 'bad' and 'good', but that isn't my point.

There are those who have played sport at the highest level and there are those who have not. Both have their place, and those who represent the common man should be careful not to step into the territory of the other.

There is always the nagging fear that anyone who has only ever written about sport will forever be a 'commentator' and not a 'doer'. There is something sickeningly fawning about it, interviewing the heroes, forever being the link between the public and the hero, so close but so far in every respect. Surely the worst fear for any upstanding sports journalist is to be lambasted by a sporting professional, "What does he know? To what level did he play?"

This is the risk that too many sports journalists of the Stephen Jones type take. They are too close to the line. And any sportsman who did moan about a journalist in that way would be right to do so. It doesn't make for good reading either.

It all relates to the standards by which a professional sportsman is judged by a journalist. The safest way is to judge them by their own standards. "He would have expected to kick that penalty...He kicks them 9 times out of 10". This is acceptable to read (clichéd but acceptable) - it doesn't cross any lines.

The wanton, arrogant and often disapproving tone that Jones takes too often smacks of a man who thinks he's the champ, the champ of rugby writing, what Norman Mailer was to boxing. This seems to give him equality with those champs in the field he is writing on. He's been around for 30 years after all, covered every World Cup and every Lions tour since McBride. But he has never gotten any closer to a rugby pitch in all that time.

He judges players by what he's seen. This, to a certain extent, is fine, and often makes for interesting reading, especially for those of us who never saw Barry John or Gerald Davies (Jones' heroes are nearly always Welsh). Jones takes all the inside-centres England have ever had and ranks them and then attempts to place the current incumbent. This is how he decides whether the young man is a worthy wearer of the shirt. This is more problematic as it fails to accept that a player is often the best available. At this point Jones can become unbearable in a short-sighted tirade about modern standards and so on. Again, he is left as the commentator who always knows best but is never willing to do anything about it.

Stuart Barnes also falls in to this trap occasionally. As a former player he is naturally inclined to be nicer towards players. He knows the pressures that Jones has never faced. Never. As such his insights are often more interesting. He has the stories from touring. And everyone knows that a story about players on tours is always going to be more interesting than one about drunken hacks, sniffing about for a story.

Where Barnes falls down is his remarks on coaches, for he is nearly always right about players. He has played with and against some of the greats, drank Merlot with them, sung Leonard Cohen with them and is a better judge for it. He never was a coach though, too much of a maverick player, so his comments on coaching must always be taken with a pinch of salt. Having said that, he played under many coaches and his judgements are aided by the fact that he got along spectacularly with some and abysmally with others. He knows what he is looking for in a coach. Jones knows what he is looking for in a coach - one who wins. His experiences are narrow and so are his judgements.

Both types of journalist have their place. It would be tiresome to constantly hear the musings of those who were once at the pinnacle. We can be amazed and enlightened by their words but we will never be them. They have seen things we never will. So we need the more literate of the remaining majority who lack the playing experience to put forward their views. They must become expert watchers and the things that they pick up on are the smaller things that the competitor naturally has no time for. The view from the press box is a very good one but those who inhabit it and make it their home should remember how far away it is from the arena and temper their writing with appropriate levels of sympathy, along with the awe for those who compete. For that is what the reader feels. As soon as an everyday journalist loses their sense of awe for what they are watching, they are finished.

Speak Less Than Thou Knowest

The ability to comment underneath online sports journalism is a sad and bad thing.

It used to be the case that sport was discussed face to face in pubs, cafés, at work or in the home. Theories of evolution were crucial to this working: if you or your views were offensive or wrong then everyone else would have the option of staying away from you and your views would permeate no further than your body odour.

These days, however, everyone has an automatic audience, no matter how much of a loonie they are.

Why should the views of some punter have equal footing on a page as a journalist? Even if that journalist is a second-rater who writes to a script and insists on including a gratuitous reference to Shakespeare in a rugby report that does little to suggest that he has actually read Julius Caesar but rather that he has read something about the film The Ides of March. Unbelievable.

Some commenters are such regulars on the Times that they deserve their own head shot. Maybe I'll shoot their head for them.

So if you have genuine views, set up your own website and write them out fully. Then you can spend your days checking the stats page to see if anyone actually reads it - that's democratic. Or at least, then people can just leave comments on your blog and all the offensive, stupid people can be happy and ignorant in the same place.

I know what you're thinking. Fraser, you angry little hypocrite. And yes, I comment every now and again. Heck, I've commented as myself on articles about me - you should see the way some people run for the hills when the object of their displeasure turns up. There's no need for them to run though, I don't know who they are. They're hiding already, behind clever pseudonyms. Yet run they do.

So am I just as guilty? No, I profess to a more noble cause of smoking out the bullshitters, the liars and the creeps and making them so scared and so embarrassed that they shy away from the computer and wish they'd never picked up a rugby ball. Except in most cases...

Some sites think the number of comments they receive validates them. They wear the numbers of comments as a badge of honour. They might moralise about everyone having the right of opinion. This is wrong. If their journalism is good enough, people should be flocking to their site anyway to read the words, not going there to let off some steam and spout some of their own views. A comments section shows a total lack of faith in what your website is trying to achieve.

Keyhole Surgery: Hallelujah.

For about 45 minutes this sunny afternoon I was back in Paris. It was just me, my ankles and an assorted group of health professionals. From the smiling receptionist to the rushed woman who did the x-rays, standing behind her iron screen (radiographer?), to the knowledgeable and confident consultant.

It could have been the Clinique du Sport in the 5th Arrondissement, where I kept the MRI machine warm for Hugo Southwell, or the hospital in Antony, or that other clinic that I sweated my way around the suburbs to find only for results to show that my hamstring was still very much intact.

Today was in Exeter but the all the apparatuses of these visits remained. The interminable waiting around, watching the clock, not wanting to touch the communal magazines despite the knowledge that these patients were injured and not sick. Their germs were the same as mine and their joints just as unstable. I read the Telegraph sport section instead of the Midi Olympique. My fellow patients were just the same, the elderly and their hips. The same, faint excitement from the staff when they realise they have un sportif on their hands.

Then there's my eternal and paradoxical hope that the ankle will still be sore when he does his examination. It would have been typical if it had behaved at exactly the wrong moment, making me look the fool.

And as you read your sports paper, in English or French, you rehearse the story of how you injured the ankle in the first place. You don't tell them how you injured it, that's in the past, all that remains is the story. So you tell them the story of how you injured it - the story that you've been perfecting each time you tell it to each different physio and each different coach.

And after the x-ray people have got their hands on your ankle and lined it up and hid behind their screen and pressed the button, you return to the waiting room. And when the images appear on the doctor's screen, he looks for the abnormality and, hallelujah, he finds something. He calls you in to share the good news. You are injured. There is genuinely something wrong with the joint. Immediately I felt sane again. What joy to be injured, to be officially injured and to know how it is going to be fixed and when you will play again.

I can now haul myself out of this limbo, this lazy, half-assed semi-retirement that I've been wallowing in and circle a date on the calendar. That is when I will run again and play again. I will go under the knife - my stomach churns - and then they will take the stiches out and then I will work hard and then I will play again.

Nick Mallett for England

Worldly, erudite, multi-lingual and proven in several environments. This man must be the next coach of the England rugby team. Nothing about Nick Mallett smacks of Aviva Premiership weights lifting academies or RFU accredited coaching badges or moving through the system being sycophantic to the right people. He seems to me to be about as far away from Rob Andrew as a rugby person could be. Though Andrew went to Cambridge and Mallett to Oxford.

He combines the rugged, ruthless streak common in South African rugby with an erudite and enquiring mind. For a generation of rugby players who have never seen past the back door of their local Nando's, Mallett is a rugby traveller, the best sort of rugby person. Never accepting that he knows everything or that the South African way is best, he has travelled the rugby world accepting challenges and learning on the hoof.

He was schooled in the same way as many white Springboks, at a white private school, in the Eastern Cape, from where he moved to Cape Town University where he took a BA in English and History. Ah, a man of letters, a reading man. Excellent.

From there he moved to Oxford - just another thick rugby player, many mean-spirited souls will cry - but he took blues in both rugby and cricket. He once hit three sixes in an over off Ian Botham. English, history, rugby AND cricket. I'm unashamedly biased.

Back in South Africa he won 4 consecutive Currie Cups with Western Province and won 2 caps for the Springboks.

His coaching career began in Italy at Rovigo from where he moved to Saint-Claude in France. He then coached Boland back in South Africa, then the Springboks assistant coach before being appointed head coach in 1997.

If it hadn't been for typical stubbornness and political infighting of the SARFU, who knows what Mallett could have achieved. He took the Boks on a record winning streak of 17 wins, including an unbeaten Tri-Nations. His time with his national side ended after his relationship with the captain Gary Teichmann soured and Mallett spoke out against high ticket prices. Instead of going through a disciplinary hearing for allegedly "bringing the game into disrepute", he resigned.

He returned to coaching in 2000 with Stade Francais, to whom he brought domestic titles in 2003 and 2004. Success. It was then back to Western Province before taking up the Italy job. The very fact that he took the Italy job is highly laudable. A coach of his calibre would have enjoyed more success at any of the top clubs in the world and most national sides. It says a great deal about him that he took on such a challenge. Italy moved forward under Mallett, slowly but forward, and there are greater issues in Italian rugby that are outwith the remit of the head coach of the international side.

He's also consistently won with the Barbarians - crucial wins with a dying franchise playing an impressive style of rugby. With two hours practice on a Tuesday and another two hours on a Thursday, these wins are not to be sniffed at.

As a rugby coach, his credentials are some of the best around. As a person, likewise. The culture he will create will be a winning one, with no excuses. In many ways he reminds me of Clive Woodward in his professional outlook. This is no time to pick a candidate to learn on the job. England must start winning, the resources are too great to make mistakes.

Technically he is clearly adept. He is used to media pressure and the PR skills that come with it - something that Wayne Smith shied away from - and he clearly loves a challenge. He's always succeeded and played good rugby, too. For England to get to where they should be, it has to be Mallett.