`The grand old game': football, media and identity in Scotland

First paragraph: In a recent review of books concerned with sport and identity, Andrew Blake highlighted the need to place the development of sport across the globe within specific historical frames of reference. He argued that what was required was an 'analysis of the place of sport in the new cultures built within the economics of global capital' (Blake, 1995: 49). Blake then developed this point by commenting on the increasing globalization of sport, which he viewed as driven by television, and concluded that: 'For all the horrors of globalism, one more nail is driven into the coffin of cultural nationalism with every step towards the sporting [global media] circus' (Blake, 1995: 49). These quotes, and the assumptions which underpin them, are a useful point of departure for us, touching on a number of themes which this article seeks to address.