Scottish sport, nationalist politics and culture

Abstract

First paragraph: By the year 2000 Scotland will have a new Parliament, the first in Scotland since 1707. This Parliament will not make Scotland a homogeneous entity. Within months of the countrywide endorsement in September 1997 of a devolved Parliament, divisions were already apparent, as Scotland's two major cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, were involved in a public debate over which city should be the temporary home of the Parliament. Scotland has always been an uneasy partnership of very different communities. Sport, therefore, should not be used as a fallacious guide to undifferentiated Scottishness but rather as a subtle reflection of social, cultural and political diversity. This paper argues that sport has reflected and reflects some of these various past and present images and indices of diversity.