"I think one or two people suspected I had lost the plot after the semi-final when I said I wanted to get 20, 000 people from the Highlands behind the team for the final, " he said.
When a Downing Street advisor points out that loneliness is probably more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking, there are plenty who immediately assume that the advice is part of some dastardly statist plot to get pensioners out of their one-bed flats to sweat their final years away on a factory production line - see below for one example.