"Not to see England. I mean, what if England won?" That's Jason Connolly, owner of a Scottish pub in West London, explaining why his regulars stayed home during England's World Cup match against Croatia. The horror, indeed.
This is the "Anyone But England" phenomenon — a rallying cry as old as international football itself, stretching back to the first-ever international match in 1872, England vs. Scotland, played in Glasgow. A 0-0 draw, naturally. The rivalry has been stubbornly unresolved ever since.
Both nations qualified this year, a quirk of FIFA's founding rules that permanently grant England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland separate seats at the table. That means most Scottish fans arrive at any World Cup with two rooting interests: Scotland to win, and England to lose.
Scotland's second trophy: England's defeat
Tom Connor, an accountant born outside Glasgow and now living in London, sat quietly in the corner of Connolly's during the England-Croatia match. When Martin Baturina equalized at 36 minutes, the pub groaned. Connor smiled. Subtly, but unmistakably.
"Look, I don't mind if England wins to an extent," he said. "But please God, not the whole tournament. There will be no living it down."
Martin Riddell, a retired IT specialist from Edinburgh who travels the globe following Scotland, runs a fan club that issues a shirt each season honoring Scotland's "player of the year" — defined as whoever did the most to knock England out. Last year's winner was Mikel Oyarzabal, whose last-minute goal in the Euro 2024 final ended England's run. Riddell didn't watch it live. He cut his hedges for two hours instead.
At this World Cup, Riddell was in Fort Lauderdale with his fishing gear. He had no intention of watching a single England match. "I don't watch their matches, I don't read about their matches, I really don't think about them at all," he said — a couple of hours before England kicked off against Ghana.
Pride over pragmatism
The numbers make the rivalry feel lopsided on paper. England has appeared at 17 World Cups and won one. Bookmakers currently have them as third or fourth favorites to lift the trophy at roughly 6-1. Scotland, with one-tenth the population, is at their ninth appearance and has never made it past the first round. Their odds to win the whole thing: 250-1.
Scotland's group stage went: a win against Haiti, a loss to Morocco, a loss to Brazil. A slim chance of reaching the knockout stage remains, dependent on weekend results. If they're eliminated, the entire Tartan Army flies home the next day, regardless of what England are doing.
That 250-1 price is essentially asking whether Scotland can do something they've never done in the tournament's history. The answer the market gives is clear. But nobody in Scotland is proposing a merger with the English program to fix it — not even the academics who study this stuff for a living.
Stuart Whigham, a professor of sports sociology at Oxford Brookes, puts it plainly: Scots would rather have a weaker national team than dissolve their separate association into something called Great Britain. When the 2012 Olympics required a unified British football squad, Wales joined. Scotland refused, specifically to avoid giving FIFA any precedent for combining the associations.
"As Scots, we'd rather have the talent pool diluted and have a second- or third-rate Scottish team than see a British team with maybe one or two Scottish players," Whigham said.
Whigham himself was once a committed member of the anyone-but-England camp. Years of living in England, marrying into an English family, and studying nationalism academically have softened him — slightly. This week he bought his son an England jersey. He plans to sit beside him and be supportive during England's next match.
"If they lose, deep down in my heart, the joy of their failure will still come through."
