Andy Murray And The Identity Battles

Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. This axiom, immortalised by late John F Kennedy in one of his speeches, came into play after Andy Murray's historic win at Wimbledon. For the Brits, a long-drawn drought of their own countryman winning or coming anywhere close to the trophy, finally got over. The last guy to win the tournament was Fred Perry (1936).

But his success also brought to fore the latent sub-national identity and gender politics in the British society. During one of his interviews Murray himself had joked that he is a British when he’s winning, but Scottish when he’s losing. Many newspaper headline writers unwittingly stoked the embers of identity politics by mentioning it as 'England's' historic success. It turned out to be a proverbial red rag to Scottish nationalists, who took umbrage at this 'insensitive' reporting.

Murray's success also had its play in the arena of gender politics. The Guardian reminded us that another Brit had won Wimbledon in 1977 and that person happened to be a woman - Virginia Wade. In fact the newspaper points out that in women's tennis the country had been far more successful. Barely a year after Fred Perry won the championship Dorothy Round Little won the women's singles – for the second time in her career. In fact they had tasted success three times after Dorothy's feat, with Wade being the last one.

Describing it as a 'dark day for sports journalism' it quotes a tweet by Chloe Angyal, a feminist writer, "Murray is indeed the first Brit to win Wimbledon in 77 years unless you think women are people". For affable Murray all this may be something he may not have bargained for.

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