OKinUK Blog

Watching the US Open Tennis final early last week - I was amazed by the commentary at the end of the game (in which the Scot Andrew Murray was beaten in straight sets) essentially claiming a British Victory that he had come so far and done Great Britain proud to get into the final - good old British fair play and all that.

Excuse me, but is this the same country that last month was declaring only Gold was good enough for Team GB at the Beijing Olympics?! Have the British lost their sense of ‘fair play' or does it only apply when they are losing?

To begin, I must admit my bias as an Australian who secretly gloats at most British sporting losses. But for a country that seems almost proud of a concept they call ‘Wimbledonisation' (they host the greatest players in the world but their citizens are never amongst the winners) you can only admire the way they accept sporting defeats with such grace (or resignation).

Perhaps it is because they are not in fact a single team at all. In some competitions (like the Olympics) they compete as Great Britain and yet in others the English battle the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish on the Rugby fields, football pitches and Cricket greens. England may have failed to qualify for last years World Cup but in Edinburgh and Cardiff there was not so much pity as a feeling of ‘now you know what it feels like to miss out also!' In the Commonwealth Games, Six Nations and many other international competitions it is England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales all competing individually - hardly conducive to forging a nationalistic sporting fervour when all these groups collide to produce a united British team.

But you would have to have been hiding under a rock for all of August to have not noticed the fervour with which people were glued to their TV screens and websites as the medal tally rose. It invoked people to get passionate in everything from the swiming to unknown sports like yingling. And with the taste of victory it was shown that the Brits are no different to the Americans, the Australians or anyone else. They can hold their heads high and parade their glorious athletes through the streets of London in parades and on every talk show on TV with the best of them.

Not that long ago, the English were teased for giving their winning Ashes Cricket team a big parade after beating Australia in the Ashes (a competition with only 2 teams, which they hadn't won in 19 years). Cricket being a game incomprehensible to Europeans and Americans, that the Brits invented but have famously been beaten in by their former Colonies ever since. But celebrate they will and why not? While your colleague round the coffee machine on a Monday morning may be saying ‘well he never really had a chance' or ‘never had any hopes to win anyway' with the Olympics only 4 years away they REALLY DO care.

‘Fair Play' may be all well and good in the schoolyard but don't let that cloud your impression. The British are a proud sporting nation no matter whether playing under their separate or united flags and with the 2012 Olympics coming to London will only become more so in the next few years.

Andrew Murray may have come second to Roger Federer in New York, but he's still young and there's plenty of time to reap revenge on home turf next year. And when a British Citizen once again wins Wimbledon, you can bet there will be celebrations in the streets. The British are nothing if not patient - fair play or not!