I COULDN’T agree more with David Roche (Our team deserves a new strip and song, Oct 14) that a new anthem is needed. Not one using a tune or words from the past, but one for the future, for our new nation, and our pride in it. The anthem should express our determination to become independent, and to tell of our freedom around the world.

To me a famous, successful song of recent years conveys more than enough on which to base the anthem – “I would walk 500 miles”. The Proclaimers would, I hope, go along with their consent and writing the words.

An extra benefit is it has a lively tune, easy and forceful to sing before the start of a football or rugby game; what a boost to our players – it must be worth at least one score. I’ve been told it’s a popular song in many countries. Even if a few Scottish supporters or many opponent ones don’t know the words using their hands or feet help make the place rock – worth another score.

READ MORE: The Scotland team deserves a new blue strip and a better national anthem

For those who think it would be too light for ceremonies, surely slowing down the pace of the anthem would not be impossible.

In the unlikelihood, that the Proclaimers are stuck in starting the words, I’ll suggest “We did wait 300 years and more...”

Robert Walker
Kinross

I FIND the suggestion of Scots Wha Hae as a candidate for a national anthem perverse. It and Scotland the Brave were for a long time the unofficial national anthems of Scotland. Indeed when people started drowning out God Save the Queen with boos then following it with Flower of Scotland, attempts were made by the SFA and SRU to replace God Save the Queen with Scots Wa Hae and Scotland the Brave before they gave in to the popular demand and used Flower of Scotland.

There was strong resistance from the Unionist establishment to Flower of Scotland, I suspect in part because of the lines “Those days are past now and in the past they must remain but we can still rise now and be the nation again,” and for those lines I would keep it. It looks forward to Scotland as a nation prepared to stand up for who it is and what it’s people believe in not back to past glories.

As for the strip, they change periodically, largely for commercial marketing reasons, give it a few years and the shorts will be white again and the shade of blue will doubtless change slightly. But I can’t imagine a Scotland team without a home strip with a dark blue shirt.

Alan Thompson
via thenational.scot

I BELIEVE Jack McConnell’s “Scottish Executive” tried to standardise the specific colour of blue in the Scottish flag, but on taking power the Scottish Government rejected that notion.

The blue of Scotland is any shade you prefer. And that’s the way it should remain, in my opinion.

I personally dislike the very dark navy blue worn in some strips, but I do like many of the lighter shades of blue. I’m not a huge fan of sky blue or a wishy-washy blue, so I suppose everyone has their own preference.

I believe this decision by the Scottish Government was a very wise move and ensured that Scotland’s shade of blue was not standardised, which would have given an advantage to England as “the Union” in their own strip where they routinely abuse the colours of the Union flag, and this is seen worldwide whenever England play.

There is no blue in the English flag.

Perhaps Fifa and Uefa should correct England on this flagrant abuse, and the insult to the many soldiers and airmen who fought and died to defend these islands, and the four nations within.

England falsely claims the colours of the Union flag for itself, routinely.

Their football, cricket and rugby teams are all clad in red, white and BLUE? Gross misrepresentation, right there.

Alastair Stephen Hosey via thenational.scot APART from a couple of games in the late 1890s into the early 1900s when they wore the Earl of Rosebury colours, Scotland has worn dark blue shirts.

Many great teams and players have been proud to don the dark blue of Scotland over the century since then. Our national rugby team wears the same colour shirt and has done for the same amount of time. What’s wrong with it now?

Iain Macdonald
via thenational.scot

I REMEMBER when Flower of Scotland was a regular at Corries concerts. It wasn’t a dirge then. It’s only a dirge now because crowds can’t sing properly, meaning bands have changed the timbre. Early recordings dating back to the sixties sound very different.

Derek Grainge via thenational.scot ONLY after we ARE independent should we think about a New National Anthem. The lines: “Those days are past now and in the past they must remain, but we can still rise now and be a nation again” must be fulfilled before we contemplate a new national anthem.

Tom Carroll
via thenational.scot