Excuses have never been in short supply when the Scots lose at sport. We wuz robbed. We'd been out the night before. The ref was English. The ball was the wrong shape. The goal posts were too close together.

As of now a nation's determined losers can add another one: we wuz suffering from a lack of vitamin D.

Generations of pale-legged footballers may indeed be delighted to learn that all that has been holding them back from stardom has been a vitamin deficit. As opposed to a talent deficit.

Oliver Gillie's groundbreaking report includes the hypothesis that Scottish athletes may also be victims of a lack of sunlight.

What is even worse news for the Scots is that the English, who receive 50 per cent more sun, are clearly given an unfair advantage as a result. As the report puts it, “this is enough to make a significant difference in vitamin D levels between the two countries and could affect sporting achievment”.

All those defeats at the hands of the Auld Enemy? Simple. We wuz robbed. Of sunshine.

If the playing field, so to speak, has never been level, it may explain why so many Scots have failed to shine on the sporting stage. Though Colin Montgomerie lives in England, so he doesn't count.

Inside the former Iron Curtain countries, it was long known that low levels of vitamin D impaired optimum function of the nervous system, muscles and other body processes.

In the 1920s, the Germans realised that ultraviolet radiation improved physical performance and in 1927 the German Swimmers' Association were accused of unfair advantage by using a sunlamp to speed up their team. Russian scientists reported in 1938 that college students who underwent a course of UV radiation were able to knock a second off their average time in the 100metres dash.

All Scottish athletes, the report suggests, would be well advised to take a supplement of 2,000 IUs of vitamin D per day and to train in a sunny climate for several weeks a year, especially in winter.

And so next time Motherwell are playing St Mirren in the gloom on a dark Saturday afternoon, we must remember just how good they might be ... if they didn't live in Scotland.

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