Simply Scottish

Things that we take for granted in The Islands can be very confusing to our outside visitors. Case in point: the manager of Scotland's national soccer team, German Bertie Vogts. In an interview, Bertie expressed bewilderment that when fans of Glasgow Celtic and Rangers choose to wave a national flag at their club matches, it is either the national flag of the Irish Republic (the tricolour) or the Four Nation flag (at least as originally conceived) of the United Kingdom (the Union Jack). No Scottish flags. This leads Bertie to state:

I think I feel more Scottish than a lot of fans at Celtic and Rangers do.

Now, Bertie has a point here, although strictly speaking, if he's finding the behaviour of many Scots bewildering, maybe he's not as Scottish as he thinks he is. It is the case that being a supporter of Celtic or Rangers can carry religious and/or national baggage, and the fan bases of the two teams have a inertial quality -- in the Republic, if one has a Scottish football allegiance, it is expected to be for Celtic, and so on. But the weakness of the national allegiance has a simpler explanation -- the national team just hasn't been that good in recent years, and faces a tricky battle against the original Orangemen, the Netherlands, to qualify for the European championship next year. Fair weather fandom transcends all identities.