and would never be watching anything where it would come up in passing.

Not even the news? Not even just looking at a newspaper's website and noticing the big picture of some footballers on the front page?

I wouldn't be surprised to meet someone who couldn't name a single rugby league team, for example.

Me neither, but rugby league isn't anywhere near so overwhelmingly ubiquitous as football.

If you don't give a toss about sport, you don't watch all the way to the end of the news. Even if you merely stop paying attention at the start of the sport as opposed to changing channel, then as long as you're not in Scotland, you're always going to have tuned out by the time they get to any Scottish football. Also a big picture of footballers means, to me, 'no point even looking at that headline then', and how often is the big headline going to be about a Scottish team, not an English one, anyway? Football is much more ubiquitous than rugby league, yes, but if you're in England, I'm not sure Scottish football is.

Hmm, I'm unconvinced. I feel about ballet the same way you feel about football, yet I can still say Darcey Bussell.

Being able to name Darcey Bussell is like being able to name Man U, as in the single biggest headline thing that even if you know nothing you know that, and my whole point is that the Scottish teams aren't the headlines, they're 'and now in the SPL', somewhere behind Plymouth Argyle vs. Accrington Stanley. I'd offer you a comparison in the form of a ballet dancer who's very important in a particular sub-field of ballet without being the single biggest headline name, but I can't name you any others either, which I believe proves my point.

I don't give a toss about sport, but I live in Scotland. The thing with football, is it causes fights, so ends up on the proper news. They also cause traffic disruption. When rugby causes traffic disruption it's teams with names like "Scotland", so a bit easier.

Any time spent in Scotland, though, and you soon get Hibs/Hearts and Rangers/Celtic because they're not just sport, they're also religio-political and certain people divide themselves along the lines.

Also, though, on Tim's side, English teams you'd probably not say "Manchester" or "Grimsby". You'd know you probably had to add another word, like "United" or "City" or "Alexander".

Rugby teams: there's Leinster. But I don't know where they belong, or which version they play. They're a pub quiz answer. If the questions says "Heinekin cup" I write "Leinster". :)

I know about Rangers/Celtic because my step-granddad was from Glasgow and as a child I had this green and white stripy jumper that he really didn't like, which I appreciate is the sort of general-experience-based knowledge that Tim's talking about, but I can believe some people might just not have had that. I didn't know Hibs/Hearts was a similar sort of divide, for example, and I don't know where either of those teams are from. (That would be an interesting sub-poll; of those who knew Celtic or Rangers, how many of them know they're from Glasgow? And if you didn't, and were just guessing at big cities that probably have teams, you might say Glasgow even if you had vaguely heard of Rangers. Or not want to answer 'Rangers' because surely that needs a town name too, like you can't just say 'United', but if you don't know what it is...)