Noticing that an old sports journalist had been re-cast as a political commentator recently I started to read his article with heightened interest, presuming that at last we might get a piece on Scottish politics which could be relied upon to contain a sense of sporting fair play.

Sadly, to use that old sporting truism, he was apparently dragged down to the level of the competition.

Declaring himself a Labour man he inevitably took Alex Salmond to task for daring to propose a second referendum in light of the SNP’s general election performance. It is a valid point given the former First Minister’s previous description of the referendum as a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity, but only if fairness is equally applied and Unionists are similarly held to the spirit of Gordon Brown’s ‘vow’.

Losing fair and square is one thing, appearing to be cheated of victory quite another. Many re-matches in boxing rings and elsewhere have been justified on such a premise.

That seems ever more relevant in the context of a recent conversation with a BBC Scotland journalist who is deeply concerned about his career prospects due to the stand off between his organisation and Scotland’s football authorities regarding how much they pay to broadcast Scottish football.

Central to the argument lies Scotland’s place within the United Kingdom.

The BBC as a whole is a tax-funded organisation which has always boasted a huge unfair advantage over its competitors in having a guaranteed income. The licence fee itself is now under scrutiny, but even if the nature of how the BBC is funded changes it will remain a national broadcaster with national responsibilities, which means different criteria apply as compared with commercial entities that are perfectly entitled to insist solely on market value when making decisions.

Scottish football may lack the appeal of the English game, but BBC Scotland seems to get at least as many hours of broadcasting out of football as the network so, if 10 per cent of the licence fee comes from this part of the world then it seems the national game is entitled to a minimum of 10 per cent of the amount spent on the rights to the English game.

Scotland’s place within the UK... better off together, even as second class citizens?

And Another Thing...

On the subject of comparing sporting matters either side of the border claims that Olympic and Commonwealth Games would generate significant legacy for sport are coming under increased scrutiny in England as more figures emerge revealing the precise opposite, figures which are, incidentally, entirely in line with Scandinavian assessments of the negative impact on participation of over-emphasis on elite performance.

Within that context a letter was received by The Herald last week in which John Dunlop, who recently quit his post as a leading sports administrator, outlined public relations tricks to which he claimed to have been exposed.

He wrote: “I was CEO of Scottish Squash and was phoned by a sportscotland press officer some two hours in advance of the sportscotland CEO, Stewart Harris, holding a press conference. I was told that Harris was going to claim squash was up one fifth since the Games.

“I have no idea of any source that would have validated such a claim. The sport itself could not validate such a claim as membership was holding up but was not up.

“I said as much to the sportscotland press officer who, clearly rattled, phoned me twice more. I was in the car with two colleagues during these calls so others were very aware of the conversations.

“The claim was still published, and indeed covered by The Herald with Doug Gillon hinting at the possibly inconvenient truth that membership is a poor indicator of anything other than membership.

“We should be very sceptical of claims of success from those who stand to benefit using their own or un-validated data, or even irrelevant data. We should be especially concerned if this is to be the practice of the public sector.

“The Glasgow Games were truly a fantastic event, and possibly even inspirational, but the claims of sporting legacy are just as fantastic, not least because UK Sport in 2011 said that major events have no sporting legacy!”

Doubtless he will be accused of having an agenda but at the very least Dunlop’s testimony raises questions about the rigour applied to evidence gathering in this sector.

As things stand the people doing the measuring in Scotland are also those who need to be able to claim numbers are increasing to justify receiving further funding from government.

By contrast the correlation between the statistical evidence emerging from England and the Scandinavian analysis seems compelling and, without proper independent scrutiny, claims of increased participation figures in Scotland will continue to be viewed with scepticism.

And Finally...

Why we need more sport in education part umpteen: the complete failure of SQA geeks to understand that many competitors would have wholly failed to perform after being thrown by exposure to a completely alien environment with THAT maths exam.

Time these academics got some fresh air to clear some of the mustiness out of their heads.