Clive Tyldesley makes supporting England an almost impossible task

When Plato argued that justice was issued from God alone, he obviously had not taken into account how oppressed players could feel in a tight goalless game. Then when Russia had the audacity to equalise, Tyldesley and his sidekick Glen Hoddle struggled to be philosophical about such an affront to common decency.

It has always been thus.

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Every two years, when England are in some finals and Scotland are, of course, not, there is much inner turmoil among football supporters north of the border about whether or not to back, or at least not wish ill on, England.

The first plastic chair gets thrown and doubts emerge from those who want to be bigger and better people. Then along comes Tyldesley, all jingoistic and seemingly with no self-awareness whatsoever.

But then when it all goes wrong, and it always does, our Clive is left speechless.

On these occasions, it is understandable that a certain man with a microphone can transform Scots into a nation of Sassenach bashers.

So who better to turn to than Scotland's own Archie Macpherson to examine what goes for football commentary these days. He is, after all, the doyen whose career in broadcasting over four decades has earned him the title The Voice of Scottish Football.

“I fully admit to being a member of the commentators' union and therefore I’m loathed to criticise individuals simply because in our business, and I found this out myself, one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” said Macpherson, who at 78 remains a working journalist.

“There will be some who don’t like Tyldesley and others who do. But when it comes to bias we have to be careful here because, and I’ve said this myself umpteen times, bias is in the eye of the beholder. You may form an impression about what someone says but you have to look at what we say about ourselves.

“I was privy to the over-hype before the 1978 World Cup. Ally MacLeod and I did a tour together, we were sponsored by some brewery, and we would go around hotels to meet supporters. Ally would stand on a table and deliver his prognostication and they were hanging on his every word.

“I remember thinking to myself, and this wasn’t with the benefit of hindsight, that if Ally was going to fall he was going to do so with a thump. I watched some of those same people who cheered him spit on Ally in Cordoba after the Peru game.

“So we as Scots need to be careful about what we think about the barbs from other people.”

These points are salient, but you just know a "but" is coming.

Macpherson said: “But the one thing I would say about the England commentators is they tend to be uncritical. They tend to see each event happening through their own prism. They talk of England not doing well being down to other events than rather about the team’s failings.

“They do have an overblown sense of themselves and there is a lot of hype. They can seem unconcerned with finding any negative about the England national team, and it’s as if nothing else is going on anywhere apart from themselves.

“I was always critical when needs be. That got me into bother in a professional sense many times. The Costa Rica game in Genoa [Scotland lost 1-0 in their opening match of the 1990 World Cup] was a time when I was told that I had to be more positive, to encourage the Scotland team.

“I said to them, 'What do you want me to do? Sing Flower of Scotland into the microphone when commentating?'

“And then they lost and it was impossible to be positive. I took a lot of stick about that, particularly from supporters who feel deeply about their team. You should never fall into the trap of knocking people for the sake of knocking them.”

Perhaps the greatest voice in this country to come through a microphone at any sporting event was the late and much missed Richie Benaud, who once reprimanded a former player who called Australia "we" and "us".

“You are not on the field anymore, so Australia are not we,” the Australia cricketer-turned broadcaster said.

Bill McLaren was a proud Scot and yet his excitement levels never dropped even when describing an England try during a Calcutta Cup match.

Tyldesley and the rest find it difficult not to refer to England as "we". It just didn’t happen back in the day.

“Now you are taking me back and making me think,” admitted MacPherson when asked if his tongue ever slipped when speaking about the Scotland side as he did on countless occasions.

“I was conscious about not saying "we", "us" and referring to the opposition as "them". I don’t recall ever doing it but in all the years maybe that slipped out on the odd occasion. But like I say, I was determined not to go down that road.

“Look, I’m as big a Scotland punter as anyone. But I was there to do a professional job. Apart from anything I worked a lot in England doing network commentary."

So he never once came over as a supporter?

"Well, there was one time, the 1977 game at Wembley when Scotland won and the fans tore up the pitch, broke the crossbars and so on, when expressing fidelity with the fans, while sitting among my English colleagues, I think I said something like, ‘I wouldn’t mind being up on that crossbar myself'.”