Tomorrow night's international match between Scotland and France at Netherdale will be a remarkable occasion that in some ways goes beyond sport.
For decade upon decade, right up to the time that Scotland played its first full rugby league international - this European Championship decider marks the 20th anniversary - it was utterly unthinkable that a match from rugby's other code would be staged at a Scottish rugby union ground.
During that time, the Scottish side of the Borders became a cradle for anti-rugby league prejudice.
This was simply because more and more players from one of the few places where working-class British people were exposed as much to rugby union as to football in their formative years were being tempted to join the code in which they could be rewarded financially for putting their bodies on the line.
That so many Borderers turned on their own is a source of shame. They were effectively kowtowing
to the spiteful attitudes of the rugby union authorities, an appallingly recent example of which is recounted by George Graham, now the head coach at Gala, elsewhere in these pages today.
A year ago, during the Rugby League World Cup, I interviewed George Fairbairn, one of the greatest rugby players the Borders has produced. A Great Britain internationalist of enormous standing, he admitted that, as a teenager, he had had to factor in his shock at the sorry scene he witnessed at Netherdale when a former Gala player was refused entry to their clubhouse because he had 'taken the money'.
Prior to Fairbairn's code switch, stories were told of former Scotland internationalists being chased out of the grounds in their home towns when doing nothing more than attempting to coach youngsters in the basics of the game because they had spent time in rugby league.
In fairness, Fairbairn also noted that attitudes had changed sufficiently by the time he headed to Wigan in the 1970s that, whenever he returned to his home town of Kelso, he encountered little or nothing of the sort of behaviour to which many of those who went before him had been subjected.
Much of this can, then, be considered ancient history and Borderers of more recent generations will be as bewildered as anyone at the practice of shunning members of their community simply because they wanted to earn a living from their talents.
Even at the time, the silent majority were probably embarrassed by the actions of those running the clubs at the heart of communities which had much more in common with similar towns in rugby league's northern English heartlands than those in which the Murrayfield power-brokers lived (Not that much has changed there!)
There was something almost medieval about such behaviour, but it happened and while those who were subjected to it have, for the most part, forgiven their neighbours, they have not forgotten. It is not overstating things, then, to say that a long-overdue opportunity for reparation presents itself at Netherdale tomorrow.
It could be a special evening as Borderers are reminded what it is like to support a Scottish rugby team that has a chance of winning something in an international competition, while also paying tribute to the great players who represented their district so well but whose achievements went largely unrecognised in their own land.
And Another Thing . . .
By offering his unqualified support to Tennis Scotland's board following the resignations of its president and vice-president, Stewart Harris, the chief executive of sportscotland, broadened the issue way beyond the way a single sport is being run.
"sportscotland retains the utmost confidence in the reformed and modernised governance structures of Tennis Scotland. Progress over recent years in implementing strategy has been excellent and the partnership with sportscotland remains very strong," he said.
For years politicians and, sadly, far too many journalists have accepted claims that the model championed by Harris's fund-allocating body is the gold standard of sports governance.
Over the next seven months - that is how long Tennis Scotland have said it will take them to unravel the mess they are in, so badly caught out have they been by the recent turn of events - that view will be tested. The model itself and the judgement of those defending it are at last set to come under the sort of scrutiny they should have been receiving for many years.
And Finally . . .
After years of dubiously targeted spending - often on a ridiculously disproportionate scale compared with rival nations - aimed at allowing themselves and their political backers to be associated with success stories at Olympic and Commonwealth Games, UK Sport have finally been forced to admit that their medal-obsessed strategy is utterly flawed.
UK Sport's solution to that problem, then? Give UK Sport more money so that they can start to do the things they should have been doing but have failed to.
You could not make it up, as they say. What is really needed is a long-overdue reallocation of resources that leads to the vast number of administrators being reduced, with additional money being drawn from other areas to benefit such as education, health, welfare, justice, equality and tourism. That can then be invested on a massive scale in proper sports programmes within state schools.
A radical rethink is required and should Scotland, which believes itself to be so fair-minded, gain the increased facility to spend its own money which it has been promised, where better to offer a lead to the rest of this United Kingdom?
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article