David Maddox: The Numbers Game (18) - serving up a bit of Nationalism

Another Yougov poll is out tomorrow (Thursday 25 June) with results from an interesting and quite topical question.

Along with the usual "how much do you hate Gordon Brown ?" will be a question on Andy Murray.

It asks the polled to say how they feel about the World number 3's description of himself as "Scottish and British."

Now clearly there may be some who think the marketing men have got at Britain's best hope of winning Wimbledon since Fred Perry cleared off to America after being told to take his balls elsewhere by the snobs who ran tennis. Appealing to all of Britain brings in a lot more money than just Scotland and it was noticeable that in his early days Mr Murray was less inclined to be seen as British and quite keen to promote his Scottish identity (as the picture top right illustrates).

But the question is interesting given the hullabaloo surrounding Scotland poor old mercurial cyclist Chris Hoy and his emotional tears (as pictured left) in Beijing as the Union Flag was pulled up in his honour during one of his three gold medal awards.
There was clear resentment among Nationalists that any Scottish sportsman may wish to call himself British and equal desperation among unionists that he became a symbol of their cause.

So for whatever reason Andy Murray has found himself in a much bigger match than the ones he will find on Centre Court over the next week or two.