The way they tell 'em

Wembley officials are so keen to ensure that Scottish fans don't get their hands on tickets intended for English supporters for the second leg of next month's European Championship play-off match that they have put their collective brains together and come up with a crafty plan to thwart the Tartan Army when telephone sales of 25,000 tickets begin today. All telephone operators have been told not to sell tickets to anyone with a Scottish accent. Brilliant, eh? Well, maybe not. "If anyone calls the box office and has a broad Scottish accent, sounding as if they come from Glasgow, then we will not sell them a ticket," a Wembley spokesman was quoted as saying, in a broad English accent, in The Guardian.

"But not all Scottish accents are broad. There are different types of Scottish accents and this could cause problems for box office staff. In fact, we all know Scots who don't sound Scottish at all. In some cases, you don't have to have a Scottish accent to be Scottish.

"If someone rang, said their name was Mr McSmith and they lived in Surrey but they had a Scottish accent they would definitely not get a ticket. But if anyone rang with a Scottish name but had an English accent and lived at an English address, then they would be sold a ticket. However, a caller with a Scottish name and English accent with an address in Scotland would not be sold a ticket. We are just trying to apply a bit of common sense in how we sell the tickets." Makes perfect sense to us. Kind of.