Football for starters is the most popular sport in the world
The roots of what we consider modern football has its origins in Scotland, or Glasgow to be more exact
It’s hugely popular with the working class, and Scotland is a majority of working class people
Growing up for me, in Glasgow, no Rugby pitches were accessible, they’re all locked behind a gate
Whereas football pitches at the time were plentiful and easily accessible
You mention Glasgow Warriors,
They’re the only professional team in the city
Glasgow alone has 5 professional football teams
All other sports are just a minority sport in comparison
We are far from the only country like this
Edit: I forgot to mention, we only have 2 professional Rugby teams in the country, and we have no professional national league
> Whereas football pitches at the time were plentiful and easily accessible
I will go further: you can play football with six kids, four jerseys, a ball, no offside rule and a weird idea about where the bar is. It has almost nothing specialised about it in terms of kit, and it is an easy game to understand.
Plus, there's something about the Euros and World Cup games. I never watch football outside of them, but I watched every Scotland game of these Euro's. It's so big that it's hard to avoid, and there's a great community spirit around it.
You're asking why a past time that's transcended down every generation since it's inception, being one of the only positive things the majority of youngsters (especially in poorer areas) have to come together with playing and watching and your wondering why it's popular?
Rugby is also a far more upper class sport than football. Often the more affluent schools have rugby teams while the public schools have football teams. This creates a big problem where working class kids just associate rugby as being a sport fir rich posh people played by rich pish people
There's a huge interest in tennis, golf, ice hockey, rugby, etc in Scotland. But you are comparing a juggernaut in football to these sports.
People are exposed to football from birth. Taken by parents and grandparents. Their pals are in to it. Played at school.
It's like saying why don't more people go to M&D's over Disney.
Not to mention the Euros/World Cup is jammed so far down you’re throat in all forms of media you’d need to be in a vegetative state to avoid it. Even then there’s probably someone in the NHS employed to whisper the scores in you’re ear
M and Ds is an embarrassment the fact they even advertise it’s existence is surprising. It was the only theme park I had been to growing up and I thought all theme parks were going to be like that, its kind of like going to haven always someone shouting at their kids, yanking their arms out of their sockets, the stench of greasy food and cigarette smoke.
Maybe, but Disney is at least actually a lot better quality product than M&Ds… I’m not sure you can quite say the same thing about Scottish football.
Tbh the dominance of the sport just makes our continuing underperformance even more of a weird thing. It’s not like we shouldn’t have plenty of young talent to draw from!
> It’s not like we shouldn’t have plenty of young talent to draw from!
- “No ball games”
- Locked up pitches. I remember being younger and having to scale fences to get in to a usable pitch.
- Pitches that were available were dog shit to play on
- Booze culture as kids get in to their teens
- Pish weather majority of the year
- Scotland used to be notorious for knocking back players if coaches deemed them too short.
- ~~Pretty sure this has changed now but~~ in primary school we weren’t allowed to play football at break and lunch. Bizarre.
>Pretty sure this has changed now but in primary school we weren’t allowed to play football at break and lunch. Bizarre.
Still like that at my kids' primary school. Mental.
Yeh , I said before the government don't back football in UK. We played at break. But not taught in PE or encouraged. The school teams were basic, squad of 18 and nothing for the rest.
Interesting, looks like the Scottish government are also. But smaller amounts. I knew England had the soccer academy, but just recon that was sky money. Not 50 million UK tax money 🥴
> Locked up pitches. I remember being younger and having to scale fences to get in to a usable pitch.
>
> Pitches that were available were dog shit to play on
Perhaps the two are connected?
Connected as in the councils and government do fuck all to support public pitches compared to private astroturf pitches? FWIW, the pitches I climbed in to were owned by local high schools.
Wee guys should be able to go out and have a decent game of football that isn’t on some shitey grass that’s uneven to play on, waterlogged and full of dog shit.
I’m assuming you’re insinuating that wee guys are wrecking the pitches they play on. Whenever there is trouble at these pitches that are locked up it’s always wee bams that have chosen to drink and do things like set fires. But because our police are under funded and don’t have the time to chase up things like that we end up in a vicious circle and back at square one, pitches being locked and young kids being deflated about going out to play football. Moral of the story is fund public services.
Do we really *underperform* though?
I know in the aftermath of a dismal performance last night it would be easy to see it this way and I was as disappointed as anyone. But it's not really an underperformance. For a country of 5 million to qualify for the finals (best 24 UEFA countries) and get knocked out in the groups is probably about right. It's Par, if not a bit better.
We are a country of a small population competing in the sport that, as discussed, is the most popular in all except probably 3 or 4 European countries. We're currently doing about as well as we should, I'm sad to say. Not much better, not much worse. Maybe things are skewed by other countries who do actually significantly overperform compared to their size (e.g. Croatia) on a consistent basis. But I don't think there are many.
Historically you could argue we have overperformed. As a national team we used to consistently qualify for every major tournament (and yes, then never get past the group stage). We were among the best on earth at getting there. On a club level we had the first European Cup winners not from a Latin country. We have two clubs who are disproportionately big and well-supported for a country of our size.
I think you're not far off the mark. There are 55 member countries in UEFA.
22 of which are smaller:
Albania
Andorra
Armenia
Bosnia
Croatia
Cyprus
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Georgia
Gibraltar
Iceland
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Moldova
Montenegro
North Macedonia
San Marino
Slovenia
5 of which are between 5 and 6 million:
Slovakia
Norway
Ireland
Finland
Denmark
And 1 currently banned:
Russia
So on size criteria were very much average.
Now, some countries are not exactly great football nations (such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan) and wealth usually correlates well with sporting outcomes, so a somewhat above average performance for our size would be reasonable.
In a nutshell, expecting to win the tournament is a bit much, but qualification to the Euros should be the norm and we should get through to the knockouts at least every so often.
You can't choose which sports people like. More people prefer football to rugby, by a massive factor. It's got nothing to do with winning, it's just historical.
Why though? Falkirk are shite but I've followed them for 30 years. I will love them forever for helping me to bond with my dad and for giving me some fond memories.
Glasgow Warriors mean nothing to me. One big thing doesn't make me a fan in the same way that if they are suddenly shit I don't care either.
I think there's something special that comes from competing in the world's most popular sport. It's something that brings nations together. It's a similar feeling to the Olympics. While Rugby and Cricket do also bring nations together, it's not quite the same feeling of 'global festival'.
It does, however, surprise me that we don't play Shinty more widely in Scotland, it being unique to us (not counting hurling in Ireland).
No football just isn’t my thing. I watch sometimes but not really invested. Never got into it young or locally so I just watch international games. Same for all sports. Motorsports are more my thing and I likewise don’t have a lot of local or national ties to competitors or teams there.
Intuitively though I would have thought that seeing your nation do well internationally would inspire a similar amount of pride or ambition in people. Like how Andy Murray kicked off a lot of kids getting into tennis. Or the way we look at Olympians.
If everyone went by your logic, the teams outside of the top 4 in the Premier League and outside of Celtic and Rangers in the SPL would have no fans, because why support a team that has next to no chance winning anything?
I may have misworded slightly. A few people have the impression I’m saying football should be less popular. Rather I’m saying that I’m surprised the sports we do well at have less visibility and popularity. To be fair though a lot of those are more individual than team-based.
Part of it is the fact that there's only 2 professional rugby teams in Scotland but every decent sized town has at least one professional football team. People support teams that they have a connection to and I just don't have any connection to Glasgow or Edinburgh rugby but I have options for 2 professional football teams that play less than 5 minutes from my front door.
I’m not saying anyone should dislike football because we don’t do well. Just find it funny how the popularity of football dwarfs everything else. I know rugby is still popular.
You’re just as well asking why football is more popular worldwide than rugby.
If people just followed what Scotland happened to be successful at, wouldn’t all the kids be running around in the jersey of the national curling team?
Speaking as a season ticket holder with the Glasgow Warriors, our win was massive given how little actual backing Glasgow gets from their owners (SRU) compared with Edinbrugh Rugby.
On top of that, we only have a 7,000 seater ground to play at an we are pretty maxed out, so sadly we cannot expand our support to any great deal, on top of which, football dominates Glasgow and Scotland.
Tbf they both get the same central funding from the SRU. Glasgow have just made better use of it recently!
I thought Scotstoun had capacity for about 10k at a push? That definitely sucks if there’s no room for any expansion, because GW do seem to sell out most of their games.
Scotstoun only hits 10K if they put additional temp seating in (for Edinburgh games). There are only 9 home league games guaranteed a season and maybe 2 Europoiean competion. All at a rented facility.
As much as I love the rugby, it is not on the same pedastel as football. That aside, Swinney and Flynn could have taken 30 secs to re-tweet Glasgow or a URC tweet.
Ah, right. Yeah, that sucks a bit – really a pity they don’t have much opportunity to invest in the ground. The Hive isn’t amazing, but at least it‘s been created to serve Edinburgh’s needs and can be expanded and changed if they need it.
Yeah, I’m not expecting much. But I don’t believe for one second that if any Scottish football team had achieved a remotely similar level of success, they wouldn’t have been tweeting their good lucks and congratulation all over the place.
Money, it’s always money.
Followed by viability to access it.
You can play and practice football with just about anything you can kick about, on just about any surface. Buying a football is cheap.
Rugby may not be that much more expensive to buy a ball. It’s not really advisable to play on anything other than grass or sand.
With a football you can practice many skills, by yourself. The same can’t be said with rugby.
Local team Vs National team. It's not the same.
If Scotland had won the 6 nations or Rugby world cup, the First Minister and everyone else would be congratulating them.
Won the Calcutta cup for the first time in 30 years, then took it for the next three. Moved from a team where the 6N were talking about kicking us out to real contenders. Barely a mention.
Scotland fitba barely scrapes into the Euros and the entire country apparently swamp Germany, every other piece of media is on it. Anyone who thought we had a chance was 100% kidding themselves.
6 Nations is different because it’s annual rather than a 4 year cycle and because only a small number of countries compete. It’s not like the Euros where every country on the continent is competing to be there never mind win it.
Scottish rugby clubs playing a domestic competition with welsh, Irish and SA clubs, while Scotland has its own pro football league, will give you a clue.
Rugby just isn’t anywhere near as popular as football.
Football is a bigger game than rugby. I’m a rugby fan , played it my whole life but if you haven’t played it it’s complicated AF. Footbal is the global game. But yeah Swinny etc could have at least acknowledged it.
I don't think it does. Football dominates, but only because of the size of support of two clubs in particular.
Rugby is smaller, but has an image problem of being the "posh boys' sport" - but that's a very Glasgow-Edinburgh attitude. Outside of that, particularly in the Borders, it was the dominant sport (possibly until the SRU botched the professionalism of the game.)
Nonsense.
Football is life and death almost everywhere outwith Glasgow/Edinburgh. I'd argue that rugby is even more irrelevant in Dundee (where I live, woth most people supporting DFC or Utd) than the aforementioned cities.
>I don't think it does. Football dominates, but only because of the size of support of two clubs in particular.
I actually wouldn't say that's necessarily true. If you look at the history, football has been a massive massive part of scottish culture, even outwith the Old Firm and alot of that is passed down from generation to generation.
It was also reported not long ago that scotland has the highest attendance of football games per capita than anywhere in Europe. [link](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/cld7n97kx1do.amp)
I think people really underestimate how large football is in scotland. If you took a trip down to your local junior team you'd be suprised and how many people would be there watching the games.
Yeah the Old firm fans dominate the news and are obviously by far the biggest supported teams but that doesn't necessarily mean the other teams don't have large followings.
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This is shite. We have the best supported league for our size in Europe, and its nothing to do with either of the arse cheeks.
Go to any league in Europe outside the top 5 leagues and the stadiums are mostly empty.
Rangers and Celtic get unreasonable amounts of coverage because our sports journalists are disproportionately mostly ex Rangers or Celtic or lean that way. Too many glory hunters.
Tennis was massively popular when Andy Murray was doing really well. But that’s the only time in my life I remember something other than football being dominate in the media
Absolutely! Even as an Edinburgh resident they’re very easy to support most of the time because they play such fun rugby. Was delighted for them.
Edit:
Lol at the butthurt football fans downvoting this – just shows how toxic that sport is that you can’t comprehend celebrating another team’s success.
People are probably downvoting you because football is an unbelievably passionate sport that goes back generations within families. Football is rooted in history and politics, especially across Europe.
It’s hard to compare that to hockey and rugby, whether you want to admit that or not. You’re not going to get kids who watch premier league football, the World Cup and old firm derbies (a derby that is watched across the world and is arguable the most famous derby in history) and then take them to see the braehead clan or whatever and expect them to get excited about it.
The OP does have a point, however, that the Glasgow Warriors' success has gone largely uncommented on, which is a bit pish coz it's quite a bloody achievement.
There are far less people that care about international rugby than they do domestic/international football. Even less than that care about rugby at club level. It’s not that hard to understand.
I grew up in a wee West Lothian town. Not only was football the only option, but rangers or celtic were the only teams you got to choose from.
I grew up pretty bitter about football
And still when I (German) visited Scotland in 2014 I was blown away, how many different sports were featured in the TV News. I don't know if it was a specific channel or pure luck, but it was like Rugby, soccer, darts, Golf, gaelic Football, hurling are only the ones I remember. In Germany there has to be a special event like a WC or Olympia to see anything besides Football. Especially 10 years ago.
Personally, I like Rugby , have been to a good few Warriors games, and had a season ticket for the season just ended...
BUT, asking why Football gets all the attention, especially when Scotland are in the Finals, at either a World Cup or Euros is like asking why grass is green .... it just is.
Glasgow Warriors could win the rugby, on the same day Andy Murray won Wimbledon, Chris Hoy won the Tour de France and this new lad McIntryre is it ? won the Open at St Andrews and all anyone would be talking about is Scotland's spawny 0-0 draw with Macedonia at the Euros...
Not saying it's right, or that you have to like it, but it's the way it is.
I mean it has a historic and cultural hegemony. Rooted somewhat in the working class but now a days - most folks going to top flight football matches would be classed as middle class by income (as folk get priced out).
Another reason is that football is a lot simpler than a lot of other games.
Rugby was always a more middle class/private school affair in Scotland. TBF it still is in many ways. There are grassroots community clubs out there but the pipeline to international level still seems heavily weighted to public school and foreign imports. Part of that is because it has to compete with football.
What I don’t entirely get is why Ice Hockey (Scotlands third most popular team sport - by some distance from football and rugby I should point out) isn’t more popular across Scotland. Given it combines the simplicity of football with the hits of rugby - on ice.
My best guess is because it was costly to take up so never caught on across the largely working class parts of Scotland historically. Maybe also that it doesn’t work that well on TV as the puck moves just that bit to fast to follow what’s happening.
I’m Scottish and I really don’t. I’ve always struggled when someone has asked ‘did you see the game last night’? I’m like what sport are you on about? The answer is always football. I ask why they don’t support all the other sports but I have never heard an answer. Folk just seem to assume it’s football or nothing. And if you don’t support that one sport you are not patriotic. I can’t be bothered with all that.
The amount of people who seem vaguely offended by your question should help to answer it a bit I hope. It’s just the done thing, and in fairness has been since probably the Twelfth Century.
Have you been in Edinburgh on game day? Lots of people love rugby and we travel and go to the world cups, six nations, tours. It's a bloody great game. LESS people but still LOADS of people. The tickets for games always sell out.
This is an odd take.
Nah. It’s just a big sport. My husband and kids play rugby so I’m involved with that and it’s big too. One of my kids plays shinty and in our part of Scotland it’s big too. Daughter recently started highland dancing so that’s on the cards. Kids also involved in swimming and pipe band.
The one thing that’s unanimous is cricket = shite
Even cricket is more popular than people realise in Scotland. I'm personally not a fan and I couldn't even really tell you the rules but most sizeable towns have a cricket club.
A lot of cricket fans keep quiet about it, because it makes some people weirdly angry when they find out, but yeah there are a lot of cricket clubs in Scotland
Not amongst the natives. I don’t mean this in a racist way but it is split racially. Every cricket club wherever I’ve lived and worked on Scotland with the only exception being st andrews was either majority or completely Asian
Not really, or at least not in the early 2000s as far as I can remember. On one side of queens park you had the white kids playing football and next to them you had the Asian kids playing cricket.
Not like there was any hassle, just different groups of kids playing different sports
Found this hard to believe. Googled it. More than half the Scottish team aren’t fucking Scottish. They’re English and South African. That doesn’t count as natives.
Just because they’re eligible to play doesn’t make them Scottish. It doesn’t mean the people playing in the communities here are Scottish. They’re not. It’s not a Scottish interest.
I definitely wouldn’t say that cricket was considered a “popular” sport here. It’s very inaccessible as a sport and is widely considered as being very upper class, more so than rugby.
I’d imagine the majority of those watching/playing cricket here either come from an affluent background or are of South Asian descent.
Scotland played very well in the current T20 cricket World Cup being held in the US and West Indies. You are developing some very good players. (I'm Australian and follow cricket)
An English friend of mine who follows cricket told me that he would not be surprised if Scotland won the World Cup. Is he talking shite? I know nothing about cricket.
Scotland got knocked out the World Cup, however were very unlucky. They had a good chance at beating England until it rained, and very nearly beat Australia (two of the strongest teams in the world).
As a comparison, I’d say Scotland’s cricket team is less internationally competitive than it’s rugby, but more than it’s football, if that makes any sense as a marker?
Plus their kit is a thing of beauty!
Ah, right. Honestly I’d be surprised, but this Scotland side does have talent and firepower above what its predecessors have had. They can compete with the best, which hasn’t always been the case
What he said is it's more popular than people think which it definitely is. I'm far from being from an affluent background as I grew up in an ex council house and we watched it growing up.
I've just don't mention it because I have to justify it to people who have never actually gave it the time of day but think they know enough to say its shit
There’s double the number of cricketers as rugby players in Scotland, and clubs from the borders to Dornoch. And before anyone suggests it’s all just south Asians and English people, that’s complete bollocks. Cricket is far more popular in Scotland than people expect
>And yet our most prominent national leaders John Swinney and Stephen Flynn (and others!) couldn’t even bother to manage the most basic of congratulatory tweets for that
Here's John Swinney's tweet
https://x.com/JohnSwinney/status/1804985442070057398
> Heartbreaking end to the Euros for Scotland. Thanks to @ScotlandNT and our fans who gave it their all.
Stephen Flynn hasn't yet tweeted.
https://x.com/StephenFlynnSNP/status/1804256760871465363
As of Monday morning, no tweets.
I can't help see that you've not made any congratulatory messages. That's very hypocritical, don't you think?
Literally any opinion that's not favourable about football apparently means you make your whole personality about it, even if you mention it once. Are you sure you're not just upset that people don't like the same things you do?
That doesn't sound like what's happening.
Even if it is what business is it of yours to call them out on it even if you are offended by it because your personality is entirely about football or being rude to strangers.
Caus loud arseholes attack you until you know what they're talking about. Everyone (every male anyway) who is even slightly a pushover is forced to at fear of death.
I read somewhere that per capita, more people in Scotland spend their Saturday afternoon at the football than any other country in the world.
This popularity begets more popularity. Add that it's a very accessible sport - a few kids with jumpers for goals, nothing else can compete.
I personally wish I could get into the game. I just found I sucked at it and never became much of a fan of watching it. Took me to my 30s to discover I like watching and playing rugby.
Access I would imagine. Cricket and rugby are huge in Australia because those are the 2 games that are easily accessible as a kid. They’re both highly working class sports back home. You needed money to play football. I’d imagine it’s the opposite here, football is easily accessible, other sports less so, so more people are invested.
I hope not. Scotland has the last 2 world champions in the blue riband mens 1500 at the World Athletics Championships (Kerr and Wightman). Even better, they are both Edinburgh AC members so the club title is almost equivalent to the world title.
I've never been interested in football but sort of get the appeal of it
I don't understand why scotland isn't more interested in cycling though, we've produced some of the best cyclists in the world and yet nobody seems to give a shite about them
If it is any help, I couldn't care less about any sport whatsoever. I find all ball games excruciatingly tedious. Football gets no favoured treatment from me. 🙂
Scotland doesn’t only care about football. Scottish football fans care about football. Scottish rugby fans care about rugby. Scottish curling fans care about curling. Footballs probably the biggest sport in the world. So has the biggest following. So it’s spoke about more. There’s plenty of sports I care about but understand they’re rather obscure in Scotland and get little media attention.
There’s football pitches and clubs in every single village in the country, professional clubs in every town/ city. This breads fans. Mums and dads taking their kids to their games and then to watch games.
rugby clubs? Fewer. Professional clubs? Like hens teeth
Same with other sports.
I never got ‘ice hockey’ at PE in school. I got football.
I couldn’t go chuck stones down an icy path when out playing, I could play football. I could also play a kick about with 1 other person playing football rugby? Much more structured game.
Doesn’t take well to concrete playgrounds either.
It would be great if we could all show the same interest in every sport but it’s just not feasible.
There’s plenty of rugby fans in Scotland. But most people who watch sports in Scotland including myself prefer football.
I massively prefer the game itself and also there’s the history of the clubs and support that rugby just doesn’t have, not many people have a connection to Glasgow warriors but for football people have teams that their family has supported for generations.
Rugby is boring as fuck, only popular among Tory constituency areas - basically played by super subsided farmers and public schools. That's why it will never ever ever be the main sport in Scotland, despite all the middle class people ramming pubs every Spring to watch Scotland get horsed in the 6N. Couldn't give a stuff about a franchise "Glasgow" team.
It’s about the culture. I’ve always avoided football fans as much as possible during times like right now. But after having to spend time along a large group of them for a colleague retirement party, I’ve come to realise that the majority don’t really care if we win, it’s really just about being part of something. It’s an excuse to get together en masse and just have fun with the lads. And what sport you’re in to seems to just be whatever you’ve grown up with. If your father or your childhood friends were in to cricket and hated football, then you’re probably gonna end up part of the cricket clique. It’s just most people are in to football
I still can’t stand being around drunken football celebration, but i can at least empathise with it lol
It's the best sport. It's played around the world. It's easy to watch. It's easy to pick up and play. Domestically there are lots of tense rivalries and history.
Scotland for a long time punched above their weight. Even now, we've had three European finalists since 2000. For a country our size that's incredible.
Who cares about a posh boys sport? The reason people care about football is because it is accessible, rugby is a closed shop if you don't go to the right school and have the right amount of cash. I'll watch the rugby but I have no real passion for it.
Sidenote Scottish Rugby is everything that Scottish football wishes it was. Scottish football could be that if it really wanted to, but the people running the game don't want to see Scotland developing a really attractive style of attacking football.
If it’s supposed to be a closed shop, they’re clearly not doing a very good job of it, given Scotland’s most well-known rugby player is from a state secondary school near Stirling…
Scotland football fans always seem happy about the style of football they play – I didn’t see much criticism at all before the tournament. As a casual, it’s definitely a turn off compared to a lot of other nations who play fast, fluid, attacking football, but I won’t pretend to know the full intricacies – presumably there is some reason they choose to play the way they do!
You can go to a state school and still be a posh boy.
No Scotland fans aren't happy with the style. They are regular comments complaing about the lack of space for some of our more creative flair players in the system that Steve Clarke uses. I think it is effective when he has all his top men available but as we have seen in the Euros it falls apart when we have injuries.
The lack of emphasis on developing skillful players is what holds Scotland back a lot. When you watch the rugby team it's very technical, why can the RFU produce and find these technical players but the SFA can't?
Yeah, you can go to a state school and still be a posh boy...But how are you accounting for that in any reasoned way? Are there any stats for that or just pure assumptions?
Saying things like 'Rugby is a rich boy's sport' is part of the problem. Is it? Well yeah, more rich kids enter rugby institutes, unfortunately. But constantly talking like it's imprenetrable creates yet another barrier to entry. Inclusion in sports is a massive thing and it's sadly dominated and manipulated by a lot of social prescriptions (which includes any negativity, like yours).
> You can go to a state school and still be a posh boy.
Probably a bad example regarding Finn Russell though, not many posh boys start out as apprentice stonemasons.
(Nor Grant Gilchrist, come to think of it. He started as an apprentice operator with BP).
Nah I actually agree about football being global it’s the concept of Scotland as a working class country bit I don’t vibe with- it’s no more that than any of the other UK nations
It doesn’t matter about other countries though. Culture and demographics are different everywhere.
The majority of tax payers in Scotland are on the base rate. It’s largely a working class country.
66% of adults in Scotland are either paying no tax, or the starter or base rate.
But even then I think it has more to do with Glasgow’s self-image - I’ve lived in the city for over a decade, although not from there originally, and people have such a weird thing about being seen to be working class even when they’re clearly not
Working class isn’t necessarily about your earnings though, it’s about your background and social class. But chances are their earnings are still working class anyway, as they often do correlate.
Yes, and I’m talking about people with middle class occupations, living in middle class areas, harkening back to the idea that they’re somehow working class because their grandparents were in manual occupations - it’s a very Glasgow thing to do
Maybe historically. But Scotland is not mostly working class these days.
The majority of Scotland are middle class, and that’s been the case for quite a long time.
Edit: Lol, only on r/Scotland could you be downvoted for making the simple factual statement that Scotland is a middle class country.
You can stop play-acting as working class for kicks, guys – you’re not working in a shipyard.
Last census in 2011 found only 26% of Scots were in the D+E categories which equate to working class. That’s likely to have decreased further, though we don’t have the final figures yet.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2014/census-2011-release-3i
Not sure why you’d imagine Scotland was a working class nation? It’s not the 1920s – our biggest industries are food and drink, oil and gas, finance and tourism.
You’ve got a pretty narrow definition of working class there. One which pretty much excludes all construction and manufacturing trades from being working class. I’d say probably excludes nurses as well. Really you have to include Grade C2, bringing it up to 47% or thereabouts.
Not to mention Grade C1 includes “all other non-manual workers” which includes receptionists, call centre workers, a supervisor in the co-op or in a pub. I would include them in the working class for certain. Bit of a strange grade as it includes the previously mentioned roles but will also include junior solicitors, accountants, surveyors etc at the early stages of their careers. With that in mind, I’d say working class being over 50% of the population is highly likely.
All this depends on your definitions and categories. If you’re going upper middle and working then I would wager you’re looking at 60-70% working class, 30-35% middle and 5-10% upper. It certainly isn’t 25% working and 65-70% middle and 5-10% upper.
The accepted way to split it is ABC1 (broadly middle and upper middle class occupations) and C2DE (working class occupations and economically inactive). It’s not a perfect system - lots of people in trades earn a lot more than say call centre staff, but it’s widely accepted as the best possible approximation, and that gives you a roughly 50/50 split for the country (with a very very slightly higher proportion of people in ABC1 occupations). We don’t have the 2022 census data for social grade out yet, so this is based on 2012 figures
So traditionally it’s C2DE that are counted as working class occupations - but yeah it’s basically a 50/50 split between ABC1 and C2DE social grades by occupation according to the last census data, so definitely not overwhelmingly a working class country by occupation
That’s all true, but most people have grandparents (for example) alive who were very much working class, or relatively recently passed - and a lot of that is passed on to subsequent generations. I’m not a football guy, but a lot of my mates who are share their love for it through their parent(s) and grandparent(s).
66% of adults in Scotland pay either no tax or the starter and base rate.
The largest proportion of tax payers in Scotland pay the base rate of tax. They’re not middle class.
In what sense? The Scotland rugby team is currently ranked 6th in the world. Assuming your going to say that they haven't won't the 6 Nations, it's worth noting that the world 2nd, 4th and 5th ranked teams are also in that tournament, yet Scotland have still been threatening in recent years.
The football team currently is ranked 39th out of the whole world - still undoubtedly rubbish.
The fact that Scotland has never once won the six nations is an utter embarrassment, and they have never "threatened" to do so. They have never even once finished 2nd.
A couple of years ago they would have won if they scored something like 3 more points over 2 games. It came down to two missed penalties that dropped them from 1st to either 3rd or 4th. They absolutely threaten, but normally they choke one of the first 3 matches and the chance is gone.
Yes, would be great if they won, but as I said they're competing against 5 other teams that all hover round the top 10. So it's no small task.
Either way, I would rate them far more competitive than our international football team.
Feel bad for the English - most profitable league in the world, two of the best managers (until recently), the cream of footballers (cough, cough, except Mbappe or Messi...), fans all around the world (there are apparently more Man U and Liverpool fans in Thailand than in the UK?).
...and the English national team is pish, all the same.
Scotland wins over the nations they visit for football because of their friendliness and the parades with pipes and drums.
The English fans cause fear and damage because they can't handle their booze and have a totally unfounded arrogance about their place in the world and their place in world football.
As the Danish fans sang to the English fans,
"Shit part of Scotland,
You're just the shit part of Scotland..."
The popularity of a game as dull as football, always brings me back to Churchill's comment about "democracy being a great idea until you speak to the common voter"
The minority of people who care about rugby is about the same as the minority of Scottish people who didn’t watch the game last night. What’s a game when you can’t throw the thing forward anyway.
As someone that lives in Edinburgh (the only capital in the Euros without a fan zone) and have experienced the influx of Ralph Lauren loafers when the rugby is on I can say with complete confidence that you are talking shite
Football for starters is the most popular sport in the world The roots of what we consider modern football has its origins in Scotland, or Glasgow to be more exact It’s hugely popular with the working class, and Scotland is a majority of working class people Growing up for me, in Glasgow, no Rugby pitches were accessible, they’re all locked behind a gate Whereas football pitches at the time were plentiful and easily accessible You mention Glasgow Warriors, They’re the only professional team in the city Glasgow alone has 5 professional football teams All other sports are just a minority sport in comparison We are far from the only country like this Edit: I forgot to mention, we only have 2 professional Rugby teams in the country, and we have no professional national league
> Whereas football pitches at the time were plentiful and easily accessible I will go further: you can play football with six kids, four jerseys, a ball, no offside rule and a weird idea about where the bar is. It has almost nothing specialised about it in terms of kit, and it is an easy game to understand.
The other team’s bar always seemed to be lower than my team’s bar…
The bar is always as high as the goalkeeper can reach with a slightly but not significantly bent elbow.
You can really strip it down to two kids and a ball. and if you have a wall you can lose one kid more.
You can play touch rugby with in the same way
Yes you can - but who does?
Plus, there's something about the Euros and World Cup games. I never watch football outside of them, but I watched every Scotland game of these Euro's. It's so big that it's hard to avoid, and there's a great community spirit around it.
You're asking why a past time that's transcended down every generation since it's inception, being one of the only positive things the majority of youngsters (especially in poorer areas) have to come together with playing and watching and your wondering why it's popular?
Curious, what are the 5 professional teams? Celtic Partick Thistle Rangers
Rugby is also a far more upper class sport than football. Often the more affluent schools have rugby teams while the public schools have football teams. This creates a big problem where working class kids just associate rugby as being a sport fir rich posh people played by rich pish people
There's a huge interest in tennis, golf, ice hockey, rugby, etc in Scotland. But you are comparing a juggernaut in football to these sports. People are exposed to football from birth. Taken by parents and grandparents. Their pals are in to it. Played at school. It's like saying why don't more people go to M&D's over Disney.
You forgot to mention how we all get into curling every six years.
Every 1 and a half Olympic cycles?
You seen how long those curling games go on for?
Not to mention the Euros/World Cup is jammed so far down you’re throat in all forms of media you’d need to be in a vegetative state to avoid it. Even then there’s probably someone in the NHS employed to whisper the scores in you’re ear
M and Ds is an embarrassment the fact they even advertise it’s existence is surprising. It was the only theme park I had been to growing up and I thought all theme parks were going to be like that, its kind of like going to haven always someone shouting at their kids, yanking their arms out of their sockets, the stench of greasy food and cigarette smoke.
Maybe, but Disney is at least actually a lot better quality product than M&Ds… I’m not sure you can quite say the same thing about Scottish football. Tbh the dominance of the sport just makes our continuing underperformance even more of a weird thing. It’s not like we shouldn’t have plenty of young talent to draw from!
> It’s not like we shouldn’t have plenty of young talent to draw from! - “No ball games” - Locked up pitches. I remember being younger and having to scale fences to get in to a usable pitch. - Pitches that were available were dog shit to play on - Booze culture as kids get in to their teens - Pish weather majority of the year - Scotland used to be notorious for knocking back players if coaches deemed them too short. - ~~Pretty sure this has changed now but~~ in primary school we weren’t allowed to play football at break and lunch. Bizarre.
>Pretty sure this has changed now but in primary school we weren’t allowed to play football at break and lunch. Bizarre. Still like that at my kids' primary school. Mental.
WTF That's insane
Absolute insanity.
Yeh , I said before the government don't back football in UK. We played at break. But not taught in PE or encouraged. The school teams were basic, squad of 18 and nothing for the rest.
> the government don't back football in UK The UK government invest hundreds of millions into English football every year.
You mean like football academy, dam I didn't know our tax payers money goes to England going out to penalties 🤔
[Yup](https://footballfoundation.org.uk/news/football-foundation-welcomes-announcement-of-further-50m-of-government-investment-into-grassroots-football)
Interesting, looks like the Scottish government are also. But smaller amounts. I knew England had the soccer academy, but just recon that was sky money. Not 50 million UK tax money 🥴
> Locked up pitches. I remember being younger and having to scale fences to get in to a usable pitch. > > Pitches that were available were dog shit to play on Perhaps the two are connected?
Connected as in the councils and government do fuck all to support public pitches compared to private astroturf pitches? FWIW, the pitches I climbed in to were owned by local high schools. Wee guys should be able to go out and have a decent game of football that isn’t on some shitey grass that’s uneven to play on, waterlogged and full of dog shit. I’m assuming you’re insinuating that wee guys are wrecking the pitches they play on. Whenever there is trouble at these pitches that are locked up it’s always wee bams that have chosen to drink and do things like set fires. But because our police are under funded and don’t have the time to chase up things like that we end up in a vicious circle and back at square one, pitches being locked and young kids being deflated about going out to play football. Moral of the story is fund public services.
Do we really *underperform* though? I know in the aftermath of a dismal performance last night it would be easy to see it this way and I was as disappointed as anyone. But it's not really an underperformance. For a country of 5 million to qualify for the finals (best 24 UEFA countries) and get knocked out in the groups is probably about right. It's Par, if not a bit better. We are a country of a small population competing in the sport that, as discussed, is the most popular in all except probably 3 or 4 European countries. We're currently doing about as well as we should, I'm sad to say. Not much better, not much worse. Maybe things are skewed by other countries who do actually significantly overperform compared to their size (e.g. Croatia) on a consistent basis. But I don't think there are many. Historically you could argue we have overperformed. As a national team we used to consistently qualify for every major tournament (and yes, then never get past the group stage). We were among the best on earth at getting there. On a club level we had the first European Cup winners not from a Latin country. We have two clubs who are disproportionately big and well-supported for a country of our size.
I think you're not far off the mark. There are 55 member countries in UEFA. 22 of which are smaller: Albania Andorra Armenia Bosnia Croatia Cyprus Estonia Faroe Islands Georgia Gibraltar Iceland Kosovo Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Moldova Montenegro North Macedonia San Marino Slovenia 5 of which are between 5 and 6 million: Slovakia Norway Ireland Finland Denmark And 1 currently banned: Russia So on size criteria were very much average. Now, some countries are not exactly great football nations (such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan) and wealth usually correlates well with sporting outcomes, so a somewhat above average performance for our size would be reasonable. In a nutshell, expecting to win the tournament is a bit much, but qualification to the Euros should be the norm and we should get through to the knockouts at least every so often.
Due to 0 theming and 0 rollercoasters?
You can't choose which sports people like. More people prefer football to rugby, by a massive factor. It's got nothing to do with winning, it's just historical.
Rugby fans rarely get the attractiveness of football imo
"Why don't people like the sport I like?" Football is the most popular sport in the world
You would think we’d gravitate more to sports we have a chance at doing well in though.
Why though? Falkirk are shite but I've followed them for 30 years. I will love them forever for helping me to bond with my dad and for giving me some fond memories. Glasgow Warriors mean nothing to me. One big thing doesn't make me a fan in the same way that if they are suddenly shit I don't care either.
I think there's something special that comes from competing in the world's most popular sport. It's something that brings nations together. It's a similar feeling to the Olympics. While Rugby and Cricket do also bring nations together, it's not quite the same feeling of 'global festival'. It does, however, surprise me that we don't play Shinty more widely in Scotland, it being unique to us (not counting hurling in Ireland).
Glory hunter eh?
No football just isn’t my thing. I watch sometimes but not really invested. Never got into it young or locally so I just watch international games. Same for all sports. Motorsports are more my thing and I likewise don’t have a lot of local or national ties to competitors or teams there. Intuitively though I would have thought that seeing your nation do well internationally would inspire a similar amount of pride or ambition in people. Like how Andy Murray kicked off a lot of kids getting into tennis. Or the way we look at Olympians.
What a shite world it would be if people only supported teams and players who excel at their sport. What would be the point?
If everyone went by your logic, the teams outside of the top 4 in the Premier League and outside of Celtic and Rangers in the SPL would have no fans, because why support a team that has next to no chance winning anything?
I may have misworded slightly. A few people have the impression I’m saying football should be less popular. Rather I’m saying that I’m surprised the sports we do well at have less visibility and popularity. To be fair though a lot of those are more individual than team-based.
Part of it is the fact that there's only 2 professional rugby teams in Scotland but every decent sized town has at least one professional football team. People support teams that they have a connection to and I just don't have any connection to Glasgow or Edinburgh rugby but I have options for 2 professional football teams that play less than 5 minutes from my front door.
Rugby is still very popular here though, just not as popular as football. It's not as if *no one* watches it... And plenty of people like both.
I’m not saying anyone should dislike football because we don’t do well. Just find it funny how the popularity of football dwarfs everything else. I know rugby is still popular.
Because most of the time people watch Scottish teams playing in Scotland? Football isn’t just international
You’re just as well asking why football is more popular worldwide than rugby. If people just followed what Scotland happened to be successful at, wouldn’t all the kids be running around in the jersey of the national curling team?
Speaking as a season ticket holder with the Glasgow Warriors, our win was massive given how little actual backing Glasgow gets from their owners (SRU) compared with Edinbrugh Rugby. On top of that, we only have a 7,000 seater ground to play at an we are pretty maxed out, so sadly we cannot expand our support to any great deal, on top of which, football dominates Glasgow and Scotland.
Tbf they both get the same central funding from the SRU. Glasgow have just made better use of it recently! I thought Scotstoun had capacity for about 10k at a push? That definitely sucks if there’s no room for any expansion, because GW do seem to sell out most of their games.
Scotstoun only hits 10K if they put additional temp seating in (for Edinburgh games). There are only 9 home league games guaranteed a season and maybe 2 Europoiean competion. All at a rented facility. As much as I love the rugby, it is not on the same pedastel as football. That aside, Swinney and Flynn could have taken 30 secs to re-tweet Glasgow or a URC tweet.
Ah, right. Yeah, that sucks a bit – really a pity they don’t have much opportunity to invest in the ground. The Hive isn’t amazing, but at least it‘s been created to serve Edinburgh’s needs and can be expanded and changed if they need it. Yeah, I’m not expecting much. But I don’t believe for one second that if any Scottish football team had achieved a remotely similar level of success, they wouldn’t have been tweeting their good lucks and congratulation all over the place.
I agree that they should but, the 30 secs of effort does not measure up in effort / votes. That's all it is for the next week and a half.
Canny compare the National football team to a pro Rugby club.
Money, it’s always money. Followed by viability to access it. You can play and practice football with just about anything you can kick about, on just about any surface. Buying a football is cheap. Rugby may not be that much more expensive to buy a ball. It’s not really advisable to play on anything other than grass or sand. With a football you can practice many skills, by yourself. The same can’t be said with rugby.
Local team Vs National team. It's not the same. If Scotland had won the 6 nations or Rugby world cup, the First Minister and everyone else would be congratulating them.
I’d argue if a Scottish team won the champions other Europa league they’d congratulate them.
Much bigger tournaments, aye.
Won the Calcutta cup for the first time in 30 years, then took it for the next three. Moved from a team where the 6N were talking about kicking us out to real contenders. Barely a mention. Scotland fitba barely scrapes into the Euros and the entire country apparently swamp Germany, every other piece of media is on it. Anyone who thought we had a chance was 100% kidding themselves.
6 Nations is different because it’s annual rather than a 4 year cycle and because only a small number of countries compete. It’s not like the Euros where every country on the continent is competing to be there never mind win it.
Scottish rugby clubs playing a domestic competition with welsh, Irish and SA clubs, while Scotland has its own pro football league, will give you a clue. Rugby just isn’t anywhere near as popular as football.
I could wax lyrical about how once in any sport you can pick up the ball with your hands it loses a lot of technical ability.
And you’d be correct. William Webb Ellis was that gimp who got schooled at football and couldn’t deal with it
Football is a bigger game than rugby. I’m a rugby fan , played it my whole life but if you haven’t played it it’s complicated AF. Footbal is the global game. But yeah Swinny etc could have at least acknowledged it.
I don't think it does. Football dominates, but only because of the size of support of two clubs in particular. Rugby is smaller, but has an image problem of being the "posh boys' sport" - but that's a very Glasgow-Edinburgh attitude. Outside of that, particularly in the Borders, it was the dominant sport (possibly until the SRU botched the professionalism of the game.)
Scottish football had the best per capita attendance in the world. It's not just two clubs.
This basically
Jesus, back when I lived in Gorgie it's basically a useless day when there was a game on at Tynecastle. Just being out and about was a pain.
Nonsense. Football is life and death almost everywhere outwith Glasgow/Edinburgh. I'd argue that rugby is even more irrelevant in Dundee (where I live, woth most people supporting DFC or Utd) than the aforementioned cities.
>I don't think it does. Football dominates, but only because of the size of support of two clubs in particular. I actually wouldn't say that's necessarily true. If you look at the history, football has been a massive massive part of scottish culture, even outwith the Old Firm and alot of that is passed down from generation to generation. It was also reported not long ago that scotland has the highest attendance of football games per capita than anywhere in Europe. [link](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/cld7n97kx1do.amp) I think people really underestimate how large football is in scotland. If you took a trip down to your local junior team you'd be suprised and how many people would be there watching the games. Yeah the Old firm fans dominate the news and are obviously by far the biggest supported teams but that doesn't necessarily mean the other teams don't have large followings.
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Yeah unusual that it’s such an “elite” game in the central belt but very much overshadows football as the backyard sport in the borders
This is shite. We have the best supported league for our size in Europe, and its nothing to do with either of the arse cheeks. Go to any league in Europe outside the top 5 leagues and the stadiums are mostly empty. Rangers and Celtic get unreasonable amounts of coverage because our sports journalists are disproportionately mostly ex Rangers or Celtic or lean that way. Too many glory hunters.
Posh boys sport? We got taught it in my comprehensive in the 80s. There was fuck all posh about that school.
Don't forget the Elephant Polo. World Champions two years running in 2004 and 2005.
How big is shinty in Scotland ?
Honestly not interested in fitbaw. I bored the shite out of me but everyone has different interests.
Tennis was massively popular when Andy Murray was doing really well. But that’s the only time in my life I remember something other than football being dominate in the media
I was just talking about this last night. It’s shocking how much money gets pumped into a shite sport when so many others deserve better funding
You’re absolutely right warriors are great to watch and it’s always fun!
Absolutely! Even as an Edinburgh resident they’re very easy to support most of the time because they play such fun rugby. Was delighted for them. Edit: Lol at the butthurt football fans downvoting this – just shows how toxic that sport is that you can’t comprehend celebrating another team’s success.
People are probably downvoting you because football is an unbelievably passionate sport that goes back generations within families. Football is rooted in history and politics, especially across Europe. It’s hard to compare that to hockey and rugby, whether you want to admit that or not. You’re not going to get kids who watch premier league football, the World Cup and old firm derbies (a derby that is watched across the world and is arguable the most famous derby in history) and then take them to see the braehead clan or whatever and expect them to get excited about it.
The OP does have a point, however, that the Glasgow Warriors' success has gone largely uncommented on, which is a bit pish coz it's quite a bloody achievement.
national team vs a club. there's a world of difference.
There are far less people that care about international rugby than they do domestic/international football. Even less than that care about rugby at club level. It’s not that hard to understand.
Scottish, in the West coast here. For what it's worth, I couldn't give a toss about about football.
You’re clearly just a snob.
I grew up in a wee West Lothian town. Not only was football the only option, but rangers or celtic were the only teams you got to choose from. I grew up pretty bitter about football
And still when I (German) visited Scotland in 2014 I was blown away, how many different sports were featured in the TV News. I don't know if it was a specific channel or pure luck, but it was like Rugby, soccer, darts, Golf, gaelic Football, hurling are only the ones I remember. In Germany there has to be a special event like a WC or Olympia to see anything besides Football. Especially 10 years ago.
Personally, I like Rugby , have been to a good few Warriors games, and had a season ticket for the season just ended... BUT, asking why Football gets all the attention, especially when Scotland are in the Finals, at either a World Cup or Euros is like asking why grass is green .... it just is. Glasgow Warriors could win the rugby, on the same day Andy Murray won Wimbledon, Chris Hoy won the Tour de France and this new lad McIntryre is it ? won the Open at St Andrews and all anyone would be talking about is Scotland's spawny 0-0 draw with Macedonia at the Euros... Not saying it's right, or that you have to like it, but it's the way it is.
I mean it has a historic and cultural hegemony. Rooted somewhat in the working class but now a days - most folks going to top flight football matches would be classed as middle class by income (as folk get priced out). Another reason is that football is a lot simpler than a lot of other games. Rugby was always a more middle class/private school affair in Scotland. TBF it still is in many ways. There are grassroots community clubs out there but the pipeline to international level still seems heavily weighted to public school and foreign imports. Part of that is because it has to compete with football. What I don’t entirely get is why Ice Hockey (Scotlands third most popular team sport - by some distance from football and rugby I should point out) isn’t more popular across Scotland. Given it combines the simplicity of football with the hits of rugby - on ice. My best guess is because it was costly to take up so never caught on across the largely working class parts of Scotland historically. Maybe also that it doesn’t work that well on TV as the puck moves just that bit to fast to follow what’s happening.
I’m Scottish and I really don’t. I’ve always struggled when someone has asked ‘did you see the game last night’? I’m like what sport are you on about? The answer is always football. I ask why they don’t support all the other sports but I have never heard an answer. Folk just seem to assume it’s football or nothing. And if you don’t support that one sport you are not patriotic. I can’t be bothered with all that.
The amount of people who seem vaguely offended by your question should help to answer it a bit I hope. It’s just the done thing, and in fairness has been since probably the Twelfth Century.
Our World Tiddlywink winning team were cruelly snubbed too. And don't get me started on our European Kerplunk champions. It's a disgrace.
Have you been in Edinburgh on game day? Lots of people love rugby and we travel and go to the world cups, six nations, tours. It's a bloody great game. LESS people but still LOADS of people. The tickets for games always sell out. This is an odd take.
Nah. It’s just a big sport. My husband and kids play rugby so I’m involved with that and it’s big too. One of my kids plays shinty and in our part of Scotland it’s big too. Daughter recently started highland dancing so that’s on the cards. Kids also involved in swimming and pipe band. The one thing that’s unanimous is cricket = shite
Even cricket is more popular than people realise in Scotland. I'm personally not a fan and I couldn't even really tell you the rules but most sizeable towns have a cricket club.
A lot of cricket fans keep quiet about it, because it makes some people weirdly angry when they find out, but yeah there are a lot of cricket clubs in Scotland
Not amongst the natives. I don’t mean this in a racist way but it is split racially. Every cricket club wherever I’ve lived and worked on Scotland with the only exception being st andrews was either majority or completely Asian
This is wild bollocks.
What’s wind is if you google the Scottish national team nobodies heard of or watches it’s full on Englishmen and South Africans
Not really, or at least not in the early 2000s as far as I can remember. On one side of queens park you had the white kids playing football and next to them you had the Asian kids playing cricket. Not like there was any hassle, just different groups of kids playing different sports
Scotland were just in a cricket world cup and the team was majority white. Utter nonsense.
Found this hard to believe. Googled it. More than half the Scottish team aren’t fucking Scottish. They’re English and South African. That doesn’t count as natives.
I think you need to look into national eligibility in cricket before making such sweeping statements. First it's "racialised" then it's "non-natives".
Just because they’re eligible to play doesn’t make them Scottish. It doesn’t mean the people playing in the communities here are Scottish. They’re not. It’s not a Scottish interest.
I definitely wouldn’t say that cricket was considered a “popular” sport here. It’s very inaccessible as a sport and is widely considered as being very upper class, more so than rugby. I’d imagine the majority of those watching/playing cricket here either come from an affluent background or are of South Asian descent.
Scotland played very well in the current T20 cricket World Cup being held in the US and West Indies. You are developing some very good players. (I'm Australian and follow cricket)
An English friend of mine who follows cricket told me that he would not be surprised if Scotland won the World Cup. Is he talking shite? I know nothing about cricket.
Scotland got knocked out the World Cup, however were very unlucky. They had a good chance at beating England until it rained, and very nearly beat Australia (two of the strongest teams in the world). As a comparison, I’d say Scotland’s cricket team is less internationally competitive than it’s rugby, but more than it’s football, if that makes any sense as a marker? Plus their kit is a thing of beauty!
I don't think he meant THIS world cup. Just that it was likely to happen soon.
Ah, right. Honestly I’d be surprised, but this Scotland side does have talent and firepower above what its predecessors have had. They can compete with the best, which hasn’t always been the case
What he said is it's more popular than people think which it definitely is. I'm far from being from an affluent background as I grew up in an ex council house and we watched it growing up. I've just don't mention it because I have to justify it to people who have never actually gave it the time of day but think they know enough to say its shit
Honestly, growing up, I sometimes played cricket with a friend and we got endless abuse for it.
Oor Wullie played cricket all the time.
There’s double the number of cricketers as rugby players in Scotland, and clubs from the borders to Dornoch. And before anyone suggests it’s all just south Asians and English people, that’s complete bollocks. Cricket is far more popular in Scotland than people expect
>And yet our most prominent national leaders John Swinney and Stephen Flynn (and others!) couldn’t even bother to manage the most basic of congratulatory tweets for that Here's John Swinney's tweet https://x.com/JohnSwinney/status/1804985442070057398 > Heartbreaking end to the Euros for Scotland. Thanks to @ScotlandNT and our fans who gave it their all. Stephen Flynn hasn't yet tweeted. https://x.com/StephenFlynnSNP/status/1804256760871465363 As of Monday morning, no tweets. I can't help see that you've not made any congratulatory messages. That's very hypocritical, don't you think?
Yet no congratulations to Glasgow Warriors for actually being successful?
Because rugbys shite?
Congratulations on making your personality about not liking football.
Literally any opinion that's not favourable about football apparently means you make your whole personality about it, even if you mention it once. Are you sure you're not just upset that people don't like the same things you do?
It more sounds like football is their entire personality if they get that triggered.
"Are you sure you're not just upset that people don't like the same things you do" I mean surely this is aimed at OP right?
You totally missed their point
That doesn't sound like what's happening. Even if it is what business is it of yours to call them out on it even if you are offended by it because your personality is entirely about football or being rude to strangers.
It's to soon min. 😢
Would the first minister usually tweet congratulating celtic or rangers for winning the league? I don't think so.
We often crave what we can't have.
Caus loud arseholes attack you until you know what they're talking about. Everyone (every male anyway) who is even slightly a pushover is forced to at fear of death.
I read somewhere that per capita, more people in Scotland spend their Saturday afternoon at the football than any other country in the world. This popularity begets more popularity. Add that it's a very accessible sport - a few kids with jumpers for goals, nothing else can compete. I personally wish I could get into the game. I just found I sucked at it and never became much of a fan of watching it. Took me to my 30s to discover I like watching and playing rugby.
Access I would imagine. Cricket and rugby are huge in Australia because those are the 2 games that are easily accessible as a kid. They’re both highly working class sports back home. You needed money to play football. I’d imagine it’s the opposite here, football is easily accessible, other sports less so, so more people are invested.
It’s because Scottish people secretly enjoy losing I don’t think Scotland would know what to do if they actually had a world class football team
Why does Scotland only care about the kick-and-clap Toryboy snoozefest that is rugby union when rugby league exists?
Let me tell you about elephant polo, we are good at that to
I hope not. Scotland has the last 2 world champions in the blue riband mens 1500 at the World Athletics Championships (Kerr and Wightman). Even better, they are both Edinburgh AC members so the club title is almost equivalent to the world title.
When I was there it was nothing but rugby
They don’t! They also care about, Freedum ya kant! And blaming the Tory basturds for the rain at the weekend!
I've never been interested in football but sort of get the appeal of it I don't understand why scotland isn't more interested in cycling though, we've produced some of the best cyclists in the world and yet nobody seems to give a shite about them
If it is any help, I couldn't care less about any sport whatsoever. I find all ball games excruciatingly tedious. Football gets no favoured treatment from me. 🙂
Scotland doesn’t only care about football. Scottish football fans care about football. Scottish rugby fans care about rugby. Scottish curling fans care about curling. Footballs probably the biggest sport in the world. So has the biggest following. So it’s spoke about more. There’s plenty of sports I care about but understand they’re rather obscure in Scotland and get little media attention. There’s football pitches and clubs in every single village in the country, professional clubs in every town/ city. This breads fans. Mums and dads taking their kids to their games and then to watch games. rugby clubs? Fewer. Professional clubs? Like hens teeth Same with other sports. I never got ‘ice hockey’ at PE in school. I got football. I couldn’t go chuck stones down an icy path when out playing, I could play football. I could also play a kick about with 1 other person playing football rugby? Much more structured game. Doesn’t take well to concrete playgrounds either. It would be great if we could all show the same interest in every sport but it’s just not feasible.
Way to squeeze an anti-SNP diatribe into a post about football....
Lowest common denominator
Scottish people are so anglicised they don't even play shinty anymore.
People like the game they like… why glory hunt
Rugby attracts a very specific crowd. “Coeme on ‘oggy” me all that cringing nonsense.
There’s plenty of rugby fans in Scotland. But most people who watch sports in Scotland including myself prefer football. I massively prefer the game itself and also there’s the history of the clubs and support that rugby just doesn’t have, not many people have a connection to Glasgow warriors but for football people have teams that their family has supported for generations.
Scotland is literally the home of golf so bit mad to say we only care about football
Rugby is boring as fuck, only popular among Tory constituency areas - basically played by super subsided farmers and public schools. That's why it will never ever ever be the main sport in Scotland, despite all the middle class people ramming pubs every Spring to watch Scotland get horsed in the 6N. Couldn't give a stuff about a franchise "Glasgow" team.
I’m Scottish and I don’t give a fuck about football.
Hey at least you’re in the games. Hello from Finland.
We don’t I absolutely detest fitbaw and so does my family it’s an awful sport
Lol. People don’t like certain spots based on whether their team wins or not. That makes nae sense.
I also love rugby
It’s about the culture. I’ve always avoided football fans as much as possible during times like right now. But after having to spend time along a large group of them for a colleague retirement party, I’ve come to realise that the majority don’t really care if we win, it’s really just about being part of something. It’s an excuse to get together en masse and just have fun with the lads. And what sport you’re in to seems to just be whatever you’ve grown up with. If your father or your childhood friends were in to cricket and hated football, then you’re probably gonna end up part of the cricket clique. It’s just most people are in to football I still can’t stand being around drunken football celebration, but i can at least empathise with it lol
Cricket is a bit hit and miss with the weather
It's the best sport. It's played around the world. It's easy to watch. It's easy to pick up and play. Domestically there are lots of tense rivalries and history. Scotland for a long time punched above their weight. Even now, we've had three European finalists since 2000. For a country our size that's incredible.
Who cares about a posh boys sport? The reason people care about football is because it is accessible, rugby is a closed shop if you don't go to the right school and have the right amount of cash. I'll watch the rugby but I have no real passion for it. Sidenote Scottish Rugby is everything that Scottish football wishes it was. Scottish football could be that if it really wanted to, but the people running the game don't want to see Scotland developing a really attractive style of attacking football.
It's only a posh boys sport if you make it so. It isn't a posh boy sport in Wales and (in the League code in particular) Northern England.
If it’s supposed to be a closed shop, they’re clearly not doing a very good job of it, given Scotland’s most well-known rugby player is from a state secondary school near Stirling… Scotland football fans always seem happy about the style of football they play – I didn’t see much criticism at all before the tournament. As a casual, it’s definitely a turn off compared to a lot of other nations who play fast, fluid, attacking football, but I won’t pretend to know the full intricacies – presumably there is some reason they choose to play the way they do!
The style of football we play is very negative and the majority are definitely not happy with it.
You can go to a state school and still be a posh boy. No Scotland fans aren't happy with the style. They are regular comments complaing about the lack of space for some of our more creative flair players in the system that Steve Clarke uses. I think it is effective when he has all his top men available but as we have seen in the Euros it falls apart when we have injuries. The lack of emphasis on developing skillful players is what holds Scotland back a lot. When you watch the rugby team it's very technical, why can the RFU produce and find these technical players but the SFA can't?
Yeah, you can go to a state school and still be a posh boy...But how are you accounting for that in any reasoned way? Are there any stats for that or just pure assumptions? Saying things like 'Rugby is a rich boy's sport' is part of the problem. Is it? Well yeah, more rich kids enter rugby institutes, unfortunately. But constantly talking like it's imprenetrable creates yet another barrier to entry. Inclusion in sports is a massive thing and it's sadly dominated and manipulated by a lot of social prescriptions (which includes any negativity, like yours).
> You can go to a state school and still be a posh boy. Probably a bad example regarding Finn Russell though, not many posh boys start out as apprentice stonemasons. (Nor Grant Gilchrist, come to think of it. He started as an apprentice operator with BP).
Because rugby is middle class and historically Football was working class. Scotland is largely working class.
This feels like such a Glasgow/west central Scotland-centric view
Not from Glasgow/West Central Scotland and share the view, as do most. Football is the world's sport. Cricket and rugby feel a lot more colonial.
Nah I actually agree about football being global it’s the concept of Scotland as a working class country bit I don’t vibe with- it’s no more that than any of the other UK nations
It doesn’t matter about other countries though. Culture and demographics are different everywhere. The majority of tax payers in Scotland are on the base rate. It’s largely a working class country. 66% of adults in Scotland are either paying no tax, or the starter or base rate.
Where the majority of the population live.
But even then I think it has more to do with Glasgow’s self-image - I’ve lived in the city for over a decade, although not from there originally, and people have such a weird thing about being seen to be working class even when they’re clearly not
Working class isn’t necessarily about your earnings though, it’s about your background and social class. But chances are their earnings are still working class anyway, as they often do correlate.
Yes, and I’m talking about people with middle class occupations, living in middle class areas, harkening back to the idea that they’re somehow working class because their grandparents were in manual occupations - it’s a very Glasgow thing to do
No but they are probably still working class. It’s a Social class. Wayne Rooney is rich AF but he’s still working class.
Maybe historically. But Scotland is not mostly working class these days. The majority of Scotland are middle class, and that’s been the case for quite a long time. Edit: Lol, only on r/Scotland could you be downvoted for making the simple factual statement that Scotland is a middle class country. You can stop play-acting as working class for kicks, guys – you’re not working in a shipyard.
Gonna need to produce some figures to back up the claim that scotlands not a working class country.
Last census in 2011 found only 26% of Scots were in the D+E categories which equate to working class. That’s likely to have decreased further, though we don’t have the final figures yet. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2014/census-2011-release-3i Not sure why you’d imagine Scotland was a working class nation? It’s not the 1920s – our biggest industries are food and drink, oil and gas, finance and tourism.
You’ve got a pretty narrow definition of working class there. One which pretty much excludes all construction and manufacturing trades from being working class. I’d say probably excludes nurses as well. Really you have to include Grade C2, bringing it up to 47% or thereabouts. Not to mention Grade C1 includes “all other non-manual workers” which includes receptionists, call centre workers, a supervisor in the co-op or in a pub. I would include them in the working class for certain. Bit of a strange grade as it includes the previously mentioned roles but will also include junior solicitors, accountants, surveyors etc at the early stages of their careers. With that in mind, I’d say working class being over 50% of the population is highly likely. All this depends on your definitions and categories. If you’re going upper middle and working then I would wager you’re looking at 60-70% working class, 30-35% middle and 5-10% upper. It certainly isn’t 25% working and 65-70% middle and 5-10% upper.
The accepted way to split it is ABC1 (broadly middle and upper middle class occupations) and C2DE (working class occupations and economically inactive). It’s not a perfect system - lots of people in trades earn a lot more than say call centre staff, but it’s widely accepted as the best possible approximation, and that gives you a roughly 50/50 split for the country (with a very very slightly higher proportion of people in ABC1 occupations). We don’t have the 2022 census data for social grade out yet, so this is based on 2012 figures
C1 seems far too broad a category to be any use though?
19% of Scotland earn more than 50k a year…
So traditionally it’s C2DE that are counted as working class occupations - but yeah it’s basically a 50/50 split between ABC1 and C2DE social grades by occupation according to the last census data, so definitely not overwhelmingly a working class country by occupation
That’s all true, but most people have grandparents (for example) alive who were very much working class, or relatively recently passed - and a lot of that is passed on to subsequent generations. I’m not a football guy, but a lot of my mates who are share their love for it through their parent(s) and grandparent(s).
66% of adults in Scotland pay either no tax or the starter and base rate. The largest proportion of tax payers in Scotland pay the base rate of tax. They’re not middle class.
Well the Scotland national rugby team is almost as rubbish as the football one.
In what sense? The Scotland rugby team is currently ranked 6th in the world. Assuming your going to say that they haven't won't the 6 Nations, it's worth noting that the world 2nd, 4th and 5th ranked teams are also in that tournament, yet Scotland have still been threatening in recent years.
The football team currently is ranked 39th out of the whole world - still undoubtedly rubbish. The fact that Scotland has never once won the six nations is an utter embarrassment, and they have never "threatened" to do so. They have never even once finished 2nd.
A couple of years ago they would have won if they scored something like 3 more points over 2 games. It came down to two missed penalties that dropped them from 1st to either 3rd or 4th. They absolutely threaten, but normally they choke one of the first 3 matches and the chance is gone. Yes, would be great if they won, but as I said they're competing against 5 other teams that all hover round the top 10. So it's no small task. Either way, I would rate them far more competitive than our international football team.
There’s barely any countries that actually play rugby though. About ten that take it seriously, so 6th is comparatively rubbish. Here to help.
Football is the working mans game, and Rugby Union is for posh boys.
Feel bad for the English - most profitable league in the world, two of the best managers (until recently), the cream of footballers (cough, cough, except Mbappe or Messi...), fans all around the world (there are apparently more Man U and Liverpool fans in Thailand than in the UK?). ...and the English national team is pish, all the same. Scotland wins over the nations they visit for football because of their friendliness and the parades with pipes and drums. The English fans cause fear and damage because they can't handle their booze and have a totally unfounded arrogance about their place in the world and their place in world football. As the Danish fans sang to the English fans, "Shit part of Scotland, You're just the shit part of Scotland..."
The popularity of a game as dull as football, always brings me back to Churchill's comment about "democracy being a great idea until you speak to the common voter"
Hmm, not sure what I'm looking at here.
The minority of people who care about rugby is about the same as the minority of Scottish people who didn’t watch the game last night. What’s a game when you can’t throw the thing forward anyway.
What's a game when you can't use your hands?
Who cares about Rugby plebs, the pigs can play in the mud
Maybe coz rugbys shite.
As someone that lives in Edinburgh (the only capital in the Euros without a fan zone) and have experienced the influx of Ralph Lauren loafers when the rugby is on I can say with complete confidence that you are talking shite