By voting no at the independence referendum last week, the Scottish blew what may have been their only chance at ever boasting their own Wimbledon winner, having their own world champion track cyclist or sending a team to the Olympics.
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They cannot do any of these things because, as far as organised sport is concerned, they are British. Thus Andy Murray plays tennis for Great Britain, Chris Hoy cycled under the Union Flag and the 14 medals won by Scottish athletes during the 2012 Olympics were part of the haul won by Team GB.
This stands to reason, because most sporting associations have rules similar to those of UEFA. Article 5 of UEFA's statutes unequivocally states: "Membership of UEFA is open to national football associations ... based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state."
But of course, football's reality is otherwise. When Celtic played Salzburg last week in the Europa League, they represented Scotland, not Britain. And pre-Bosman, a Scottish footballer active with a club from England fell under UEFA's "foreign player" rule. Not to forget that the team that travelled to Dortmund a fortnight ago to play a Euro 2016 qualifier against Germany was certainly Scottish, not British.
That's because an exceptional provision in UEFA's statutes reads: "Art. 5 does not apply to the following member associations: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales." The reason is history. These countries all have their own football associations. They happen to be the four oldest in the world and the teams representing these associations had been playing internationals for decades before FIFA, let alone UEFA, ever came into being.
It serves as a reminder that what we call national football teams do not all represent a nation. They don't even represent a country. They are merely teams that represent an association. Just think of places like Cyprus, which has had two rivalling football associations since 1955.
That is why many countries have some sort of hidden football history, full of teams that few people know about even though they once were official sides playing official games. Like the German "national" team fielded by the Arbeiter-Turn- und Sportbund (ATSB), the Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Federation. (You'll see in a minute why I put "national" in quotes.)
This association existed between 1893 and 1933. As the name suggests, the ATSB was a leftist organisation set up in direct opposition to sports associations such as the German FA (DFB), which it considered elitist, bourgeois and conservative. Most of you who've never heard of the ATSB will probably presume we're talking about a small and bizarre splinter group, but nothing could be further from the truth.
In 1930, the ATSB had about 1.2 million members and more than 8,000 football teams fell under its umbrella. It oversaw a national football championship and also fielded a select XI which played similar workers' organisations from other countries. The ATSB stubbornly avoided the term "national team," because it felt the expression smacked of jingoism and zealotry. But if the DFB's select XI was deserving of the name, then the same can be said for the ATSB's side, as it represented a large pan-German association.
The ATSB team played 77 internationals during its history. The best-known player was Erwin Seeler, the father of the great Uwe (who won 72 caps for West Germany). During the Christmas holiday in 1932, the ATSB XI defeated Poland in a qualifier for the Workers' European Championship. It was the team's last-ever international, because a few weeks later the Nazis came to power and crushed the ATSB.
Fifteen years on, another largely forgotten national team emerged on what is now German territory. In July 1948, the Saarland FA (SFB) was formed in Sulzbach, near Saarbrucken. The Saarland is the relatively small area in southwestern Germany surrounded by Rhineland-Palatinate, Luxembourg and the French region Lorraine.
After the Second World War, the Saarland became an autonomous French protectorate. During the SFB's AGM in 1949, a vote was held over whether or not the association should join the French Football Federation. Although the Saar's government was in favour of the move, the members of the SFB voted to stay independent by a large majority.
And so, under president Hermann Neuberger and as an "association based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state," the Saarland FA applied for FIFA membership in 1950. On June 22, the world governing body accepted this application, which means that the SFB became a proper FIFA member three months before the DFB did.
On Nov. 22, 1950, the country of 950,000 inhabitants played its first official international. Seven of the 11 starting players came from the Saarland's biggest club, Saarbrucken FC, three from Borussia Neunkirchen (a club that would spend three seasons in the Bundesliga in the 1960s), one from Ensdorf FC. They defeated Switzerland reserves 5-3. The Saarland's national manager was Auguste Jordan, an Austrian-born naturalised Frenchman who also coached Saarbrucken FC.
Jordan soon went back to France, to manage Racing Club, and so Neuberger needed a new coach who would guide the team through the qualifying games for the 1954 World Cup. He found his man in Wiesbaden, a city some 100 miles north-east of Saarbrucken. SV Wiesbaden, a club then in the second tier of German football, were coached by the former international and Dresden club legend Helmut Schon. When Neuberger offered Schon the job as national coach, the latter accepted.
Quite a few of the players already knew Schon. Herbert Binkert, then a striker with Saarbrucken FC, once recalled: "In 1943, many of us had played against Schon in the German championship final. So we had an excellent relationship with him as a coach. Most of us were on first-name terms with him." (Dresden had won the 1943 final 3-0 against Saarbrucken, though Schon was not among the scorers.)
When Schon's team travelled to Oslo to play Norway in the World Cup qualifiers, it was the first time they met not a reserve side but a proper national team. Neunkirchen forward Gerhard Siedl scored the winner as the Saarland came away with a 3-2 victory. The return match, watched by 40,000 in Saarbrucken, finished scoreless. Yet the Saarland didn't make it to the World Cup, because there was another team in this group -- none other than West Germany.
Who knows what would have happened if Siedl had scored in the first meeting, staged in Stuttgart. But Jupp Posipal cleared Siedl's ninth-minute effort off the line and the West Germans went on to win 3-0. (The return match in Saarbrucken was another close affair, but West Germany won again, 3-1, and travelled to the World Cup in Switzerland to make history and lift the trophy.)
After those qualifiers, the Saarland went on to play another nine internationals. The low point, in terms of naked results, was a 7-1 mauling at the hands of Uruguay in June 1954, the high point a creditable 1-1 in May 1956 against Switzerland's first team, which had held Brazil to a draw three weeks earlier.
The Saarland's final game was a 3-2 defeat in Amsterdam against the Netherlands on June 6, 1956. About eight months before this match, a referendum had been held in the Saarland. Like the Scots last week, the majority of Saar people had said no -- in this case to plans of making the Saarland neither French nor German but an independent state under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The referendum was, in effect, a vote pro-Germany. On Jan. 1, 1957, the Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany. The SFB left FIFA with immediate effect and became a regional member association of the DFB.
Only one player of the Saarland national team would go on to play for West Germany, winger Heinz Vollmar. But that doesn't mean the six years of the Saarland side left no legacy. When the football team that represented the DFB won the World Cup for the second time, in 1974, the national coach was none other than Helmut Schon. One year later, Hermann Neuberger was elected president of the DFB.