Team Scotland Anthem
A national anthem serves a number of purposes. In a sporting context it signals the pride an athlete has for their country and it is the central feature of any medal ceremony. Hearing its melody and the words evokes pride and passion in your country as well as creating a bond with athlete, team mates and supporters.
With no official Scottish national anthem, it is up to individual national sporting organisations such as CGS to select the anthem which best reflects their sporting endeavours.
For Team Scotland the anthem is used at the flag raising ceremony to mark their arrival in the Games Village and is used for the medal ceremonies for those athletes winning the ultimate, a gold medal in their events.
Up to and including 1958, Burns’ ‘Scots Wha Hae’ was used as the official Team Scotland anthem. This was then changed to ‘Scotland the Brave’ which was played up to and including the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
For the 2010 Commonwealth Games campaign the issue was once again discussed with stakeholders and a shortlist of two put before prospective team members at their team camp in January 2010. The athletes voted for either ‘Scotland the Brave’ or ‘Flower of Scotland’ and by a landslide vote of 211 to 15 ‘Flower of Scotland’ was chosen as the new Team Scotland anthem.
With lyrics written in 1965 by Roy Williamson of the Corries and the music composed by Peter McCormick, the song was used by the Scotland national rugby union team, after winger, Billy Steele, encouraged his team-mates to sing it on the victorious Lions tour of South Africa in 1974. The song was first sung as the pre-match anthem during the 1990 Five Nations championship (the forerunner of the Six Nations Championship). The Scottish Football Association then adopted ‘Flower of Scotland’ as its official anthem in 1997, although it had been used by them in 1993. Usually only the first and third verses are sung.
On 5 October 2010, day two of the Games, it was swimmer Robbie Renwick who became the first Scottish athlete to hear the new anthem played in his honour, when he won gold in the 200m Freestyle.