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Fantastic performance yesterday and really pleased for him - why, though, did I start to think he was going to get beat? That there was no way one of ours was going to win? That he would falter, crumble, and end up second place?
Is this some sort of mindset we have gotten into since 1978?
Or am I just a miserable Jeremiah?
Wasn't actually that I thought he wasn't good enough - just that I was sure some disaster would befall him - this bloke would suddenly turn out to be some superstar in the making with his huge booming serves yada yada yada... Perhaps it is just over the last however many years I have learned to curb my confidence when it comes to this sort of thing...
It's always better to remain on the cautious side, you see people on here all the time with egg on their face, thinking their team have a game wrapped up at half time or have the cup in the bag or whatever.
Thankfully I think Andy Murray is generally above this type of thing, he's proven he's a winner, even in the face of three of tennis' all time greats (Nadal, Federer & Djokovic) & he will go down as one of the greatest sportsmen Scotland or Britain has ever produced.
Wonder how many more titles he will have to win to get into Scottish Sport's Hall of Fame?
Our only tennis 'star' so far is Winnie Shaw (Who? I hear you ask...)
Shaw had more success as a doubles than a singles player. She never won a major tournament, but she reached the finals of both the ladies doubles and the mixed doubles, and twice made it to the semi-finals in the French Open. She played twice in the Australian Open semi-finals. She reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 1972,
Not quite stellar...
Its because in to many spheres of sport our "stars" are so ready to accept second best and when as a nation you have that mindset thats exactly what you get. Our media and those in management of sport are to blame. We always have our excuses ready and trot them out before the contest even starts. We have exceptions such as Andy Murray , Chris Hoy etc ..our winners are invariably in individualistic sports and they are supremely self motivated. However if you are a supporter of our primary team sports we have losers running through us like Blackpool rock and consequently when you see our teams fpuck up we expect it. We are told its OK to come second cos we are too small, not enough resource , not as physically fit, don't have the right equipment..... Blah Blah Blah
I get fed up hearing from our football and rugby head guys saying "we will learn from this gubbing" (paraphrasing here). The amount of learnng we have done over the last 40 years we should seriously be contenders in many competitions. But we never ever learn cos we accept failure , its a national cancer in our mindset and not just Scotland in UK.
I dont detract from Wales Euro performance one little bit,cant deny hope theyd get shagged but they didnt so good luck to em. However they have a tour of the city because they came 3rd/4th, in Scotland we'd have had a national holiday FFS. Never in a million years would you have teams having a parade in Australia , US, France, Germany, because their teams came 3rd/4th. They have a winners mentality and dont wallow in self congratulation for losing (sure they dont always win but they occasionally do cos they have that expectation).
You must be a riot at parties, Stevie.