Andy Murray has lifted the spirits of a nation caught up in sporting misery

Had Andy Murray decided to take up an apprenticeship with Rangers FC, Scotland may well have been in the final of the Euro 2016 Championship

Andy Murray after winning Wimbledon 2016 (EPA)

Such is the media dominance, as with the Premier League, of the travails of the “national” England football team, that we sometimes need a little reminding that British sport is about more than Hodgson, Rooney and Vardy.

So the triumphs of Andy Murray and Lewis Hamilton in their respective sports are doubly welcome – on their own accounts and as a necessary antidote to the gloom that surrounded England's performance in the Euro 20016 contest. The final between France and Portugal was an unwelcome echo of that. Wales' brave battles to get as far as the semi-finals were all the more heartening for weakening the habitual Anglo-centrism of the media.

There is just one intriguing might-have-been, which is what might have happened had Andy Murray taken up the offer of an apprenticeship he received as an talented youngster from Rangers FC. Maybe it might have been the Scotland team that played in the final.