Andy was on a Radio 5 public forum about Wimbledon last night. He came across well from the bits I heard.
One thing that did come up was that the Radio 5 guy said they still got loads of messages & calls from folk saying they wouldn't support Andy because they said he was anti English so he had to put it to Andy how he felt about that.
Andy took it perfectly calmly and reitterated YET AGAIN basically what he says here in murraysworld.com
Anti-English comment was "joke" gone wrong I am Scottish. I am also British. I am not anti-English, I never was... what happened was a little joke that went wrong.
It was the time of the 2006 World Cup and England were due to play Paraguay. Tim Henman and I were being interviewed and before we started the journalist asked Tim about England's chances in the World Cup and asked me who I would be supporting.
He was making the point that Scotland weren't there. I got the joke. I laughed. We did the interview and the last question was: "Who will you be supporting?" Remembering our previous banter, I just said: "Whoever England are playing, ha ha." I had a smile on my face.
It was obvious I was joking. It wasn't reported like that. They made up stories about me buying a Paraguay shirt, the whole thing was absolute nonsense
As Andy said, it was just banter that an unfortunate spin was put on, indeed I'd say apparently lies ( given Andy said he never said anything specifically about Paraguay, never bought a Paraguay shirt, never owned one ) It did though teach him he said a valuable lesson that you unfortunately had to be very very careful about what you say and reveal to folk outside your immerdiate family and team and to journalists in partcular.
The Radio 5 guy finished this particular bit by saying yes, this is something a lot of fok just need to move on from. That got a big cheer from the audience.
Even if Andy had been semi serious I wouldn't have minded ( OK, I am Scottish but geez we are talking football here ) but in context it was and always has been friendly banter ithout any side to it.
Those folk STILL going on about it really need to get a life, and support the greatest talent that British tennis has had in over 50 years.
its the nature of things, that people who want a reason to hate will latch onto anyhting, regardless of its truth and never let it go. unfortunately i am sure it happens in far more serious matter than just tennis.
But as you say i am sure Andy learnt from it. the same as Henman never told the journo's the truth, just what they wanted to hear etc. its a battle you cant win.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.