Fine runs by Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans at the US Open last week were the latest on-court evidence of the impact Andy Murray is having on those who have witnessed his attitude and work ethic close up.
It has become ever more clear in the past few seasons that domestic contemporaries have been inspired by Murray to the extent that what would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago, a Davis Cup World Group quarter-final win without Murray playing, was achieved in Serbia immediately after his Wimbledon win this season, with Edmund taking the lead in singles.
Meanwhile, from a very different sporting field, has come further reinforcement of the effect that generating the right sort of culture can have on those exposed to it.
It came in the form of a reminder that Dunblane’s other sporting Andy has also spent time around the Murray brothers. Andrew Butchart, whose breakthrough season culminated in a sixth place finish in the Olympic 5000 metres, is the boyfriend of Caitlin Watson, whose mum Sam’s other half is Willie Murray, Andy’s dad.
Reflecting on the elements that have induced ever greater application from Butchart in recent years, his coach Derek Easton, touched lightly on the connection.
“I know they don’t like making a big thing of it but I think the Murray brothers have had a big influence on him,” he observed.
“He doesn’t see a lot of them but being occasionally in their company has made Andrew realise how seriously these guys take their sport and the sacrifices they make and the commitment they give to it. I’ve never discussed it openly with Andrew but I think that’s been a factor.”
It is obviously impossible to get Murray around every up and coming Scottish sportsperson to sprinkle his magic dust upon them, but there is an opportunity to learn a much wider lesson in terms of the benefits of exposure to excellence.
Scotland remains obsessed with a sport that it has not been very good at for a long, long time, with all due respect to those who rattled in five goals in Malta (pop c.420,000) at the weekend.
That sport largely operates within a bubble, a matter addressed with some vigour at last year’s SFA Convention at Hampden, with Gordon Strachan, the Scotland manager, among those advocating a change of outlook.
Our football clubs have the capacity to be multi-sport hubs at the heart of communities, but until now they have feared involvement in other sports, partly because they think investment in anything other than football will lead to disgruntlement among supporters.
What needs to be understood is that involvement with other sports would not be an act of altruism, but would help those clubs themselves by letting Scottish footballers gain a better understanding of what it takes to be genuine elite performers.
A similar sort of message was delivered by Erik Sviatchenko, the Celtic centre back, the other day when outlining what he is learning from spending time around new clubmate Kolo Toure in terms of the work the veteran does on his physical conditioning.
“He has been playing for so many years and I have 11 years to go to get to his age, so I’m getting tips from him, I’m asking him what he’s doing to be so fit and in such good shape,” said the Swede.
“I’m joking a bit, but I’m also serious. Kolo always approaches things in football seriously. He could’ve gone everywhere with the CV he has, but he chose Celtic, to win games, to be even better and it’s good to have an experienced player like him around who can help all the other players.”
Sviatchenko, like Andy Murray, has meanwhile also been learning this year about the effect fatherhood can have on an individual’s outlook, noting that having something bigger to consider when projecting his thoughts towards another person has had a calming influence on him and consequently made him a better player.
He has clearly absorbed the right lessons from the environment in which he grew up.
Compatriots include Celtic’s greatest player of modern times, of course, Henrik Larsson and the mesmerising Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but also Annika Sorenstam, best of a handful of Swedish women to have won golfing majors, Henrik Stenson, the current Open champion who is among nine Swedes to have played on the Ryder Cup team in the past 20 odd years, Bjorn Borg, who inspired generations of tennis players from Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg onwards and Ingemar Stenmark, most famous of many exceptional winter sports performers. All from a nation with a population less than twice the size of Scotland’s.
As he acknowledged Sviatchenko still has a long way to go to reach such heights, but like fellow 24-year-old Andrew Butchart, he is a bright lad who seems to be understanding what too few of our young footballers have had the chance to grasp, in terms of how to get there.
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