Tom Peterkin on more cricket
The Scottish National Party would appear to be attempting to win over Scotland's cricketing community after Sandra White's silly complaint about alleged excessive coverage of the Ashes series.
Tomorrow Shona Robison will go to Arbroath United Cricket Club's picturesque ground Lochlands Park to lend her support to the Scotland team playing in the European under 15 cricket championships.
Robison is quoted as saying: "Cricket has a long and proud history in Scotland and is one of our fastest growing sports."
She has also reminded cricketers that the Scottish Government has recently come up with £415,000 for the game.
A somewhat different view than that expressed by White when she suggested that cricket was a minority sport in Scotland.
Howzat for a clip round the ear, Sandra?
It's perhaps not surprising that Robison knows about Scotland's cricketing tradition. Her husband the SNP MP Stewart Hosie has occasionally turned out for Panmure rugby club, a fine sporting institution that shares its ground and bar facilties with Forfarshire Cricket Club in Broughty Ferry.
Tomorrow Shona Robison will go to Arbroath United Cricket Club's picturesque ground Lochlands Park to lend her support to the Scotland team playing in the European under 15 cricket championships.
Robison is quoted as saying: "Cricket has a long and proud history in Scotland and is one of our fastest growing sports."
She has also reminded cricketers that the Scottish Government has recently come up with £415,000 for the game.
A somewhat different view than that expressed by White when she suggested that cricket was a minority sport in Scotland.
Howzat for a clip round the ear, Sandra?
It's perhaps not surprising that Robison knows about Scotland's cricketing tradition. Her husband the SNP MP Stewart Hosie has occasionally turned out for Panmure rugby club, a fine sporting institution that shares its ground and bar facilties with Forfarshire Cricket Club in Broughty Ferry.
Labels: cricket, Forfarshire and Arbroath..., Panmure, Sandra White, Shona Robison, Tom Peterkin
posted by Administrator at
17:02
12 Comments:
Too little, too late! The SNP's small-mindedness has already completely alienated Cricket Scotland.
On this webpage, Cricket Scotland has reproduced the text of Liz Smith's Scotsman article referring to the SNP's "little Scotlander attitude" and "blinkered vision of what Scotland should be", as well as the text of Russell Brown's Early Day Motion which "deplores the comments of Scottish Nationalists in the Scottish Parliament that cricket is of no interest in Scotland".
Erm it looks like ''Cricket Scotland'' have made the same ''mistake'' that you have based your entire posting and blogging ''career'' on - misrepresenting the views of a couple of individuals as templates for the SNP and nationalism in general.
That’s interesting, Observer.
Earlier this evening, you lambasted me for quoting some nationalist bloggers’ scribblings as examples of a less-than-wholesome approach to a different topic: that of immigration.
Your essential point was that their views “have *nothing* to do with the SNP, SNP policy, or mainstream Scottish nationalism” — a point which, in that context, I was willing to accept.
But now in respect of this issue you’re trying to deploy the same argument — except that this time it won’t wash. Sandra White MSP, Roseanna Cunningham MSP, Bill Wilson MSP and Christine Grahame MSP are all on the record displaying the kind of attitude towards cricket (specifically the Ashes) to which Liz Smith rightly objected.
Are you suggesting that those four SNP MSPs are fringe nutters? Just how many SNP MSPs would need to share a loopy view before you would accept that it represents a strand within what you call “nationalism in general”?
I don't know what Roseanna Cunningham or Christine Grahame have to say about cricket, but to be honest you have just listed the loopiest of the SNP MSP's (with the exception of Roseanna) in my view, so I wouldn't be surprised if Christine Grahame had said something that I thought was a bit silly too.
But just as I don't in fact judge the Labour party on George Foulkes, so I wouldn't judge the SNP on their more eccentric members.
It's quite clear that the SNP as a party have no issue with cricket, which is why they are supporting Scottish cricker both financially and in person.
I don't think we’re going to see eye-to-eye on this. The SNP is in damage limitation mode after it became clear to a great many people that their “loopiest” MSPs’ objections were rooted in cricket being perceived as an “English sport”, and thus symbolic of our social union within the United Kingdom.
I thought the objections were about the BBC coverage of the Ashes ? Not the sport itself, but the coverage of it on terrestrial TV, in comparison with other sports more popular in Scotland ?
Not something I am terribly interested in to be honest. I think there's too much coverage of sport on the telly full stop.
But again SU, as I wouldn't read too much into a single blog which appears obsessed with immigration, I wouldn't read too much into the usual moans nand groans about the Beeb either.
Cricket is the third most popular sport in Scotland. Yet BBC coverage is limited to news bulletins as Sky has the Ashes contract. Sandra White's claim that there was "wall-to-wall" coverage on TV was mischief-making.
Do you know, before I clicked on the comments link, I said to myself, 'I'll eat my hat if there isn't a comment by Scottish Unionist here'. A career as a soothsayer evidently awaits me.
Trying to latch on to any pronouncement on any trivial subject by any backbench Nationalist MSP and pretending this somehow offers a peek into the party's soul is as transparently absurd as saying that every opinion expressed by Dennis Skinner offers a window into New Labour's soul.
Aye, well done. But I haven't claimed that it's a “peek into the party's soul” — just that four nationalist MSPs have been prepared to subject themselves to widespread ridicule over it.
Correction: seven nationalist MSPs. Rob Gibson, Gil Paterson and Bill Kidd supported Sandra White’s motion S3M-4591.
To their credit, I see that Shirley-Anne Somerville and Stuart McMillan have put their names to an opposing motion, S3M-4598 in the name of Mike Pringle, which “acknowledges the vital role that the media has to play in promoting sport and the importance of television coverage of elite-level team sport to that function”.
So the SNP seems to be split on this issue. Has Sandra White been gagged, by the way? She seems to have been “unavailable for comment” rather a lot lately.
Fascinating, SU. What's your next sensational world exclusive - that Nicola Sturgeon once secretly confessed she likes to see England lose at tiddleywinks? In SU-world, that's verging on being a resignation matter. Or to coin a phrase...
"Game over."
Tee hee, the Scottish Unionist fight goes on to prove that the SNP are the real face of evil. And as evidence he brings us - cricket.
Post a Comment
<< Home