I ALWAYS get a bit queasy when someone suggests that there should be a statue of a living person, and while I applaud Wimbledon’s idea of one for Sir Andy Murray, I worry how any piece of bronze will capture the sheer dynamism and competitive nature of the man.

It will be a well-deserved tribute. Regular readers will know that I already consider Andy Murray to be the greatest individual Scottish, and indeed British, sportsman of all time.

It was with huge relief, therefore, that I watched him make his comeback at Wimbledon. He’s only 32, but such was the extent of his hip injury that he and most observers thought he would never play again. Now he has a real chance of making what I think would be the greatest sporting comeback since Muhammad Ali regained the world heavyweight title by beating George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle.

Murray will need all of Ali’s extraordinary self-belief and powers of recovery if he is to play singles and win titles again. He is rightly being very cautious about coming back to Grand Slam singles, but when he says he can be competitive at the top again – i.e. play Djokovic, Nadal and Federer – I for one believe him. Winning a Slam might be beyond him, but wouldn’t it be fantastic if he could go to Tokyo next year and defend his Olympic title – winning the hat-trick of gold medals would seal his place as the greatest tennis Olympian of all time and I don’t think that record would ever be surpassed.

It might also be his swan song for Team GB & NI, as I fervently hope the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is about to contest its last Olympics. For with independence will come the creation of a new Olympic presence, Team Scotland.

Just imagine Team Scotland entering the Stade de France for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games as the newest member of the Olympic community. Think of the cheers from the French crowd to greet the representatives of their oldest historic allies.

Think, too, of the possibilities that participating in the Olympics would have for young Scottish sportspeople. At present, English competitors make up by far the majority of Team GB & NI, even though in some sports, such as tennis and cycling, Scotland has punched above its weight in winning Olympic glory in recent Olympiads.

If we can become independent by, say, 2022, we would need to build an Olympic team quickly, but it can be done. And I know the person I would put in charge: Judy Murray.

She recently and quite rightly identified the lack of a separate Scottish approach to tennis – indeed, the lack of a Scottish tennis infrastructure – as a problem when it comes to inspiring youngsters to play sports. It also affects recruitment for Scottish sport in Olympic disciplines. It’s only logical – if you know that the country with 10 times our population and many times more facilities and funding is going to be favoured for selection for Team GB & NI, then you probably won’t be busting a gut every day as top athletes need to. It is not some sort of nationalist victimhood to say that England dominates Team GB & NI. That’s just a fact.

We will be lucky to see two or three Scottish women take the football and hockey fields in Tokyo, but you can’t blame the coaches for that – they must pick the best teams available and right now Scotland does not have sufficiently good players, and certainly not sufficient numbers of them, to be automatically selected for Team GB & NI in team sports.

But as the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 and the Gold Coast last year showed, Scots can be competitive in many sports, and when we have Team Scotland, the opportunities for young Scottish sportspeople will vastly increase. But we must prepare for that by building facilities and funds – and I am sure the Scottish public will want to see our elite sportsmen and women properly funded so that they can do their best for Scotland.

We will also need to continue the investment that is going on with the grassroots of sport in this country. We must ensure that young people have the chance to play and be coached in a whole range of sports because that’s what is needed at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games – a broad base of competitors across the various sports.

Away from sport, we have seen the ugly face of English nationalism, albeit dressed up in a Union Jack, and never more so than the riot which followed Stephen Tommy Yaxley-Lennon Robinson being sent to jail on Thursday. The problem is that while the rioters were only a tiny fraction of the far-right, there are now sufficient numbers of lawless British nationalists as to make you wonder what would happen if Article 50 was revoked after another referendum – a new English Civil War?

Alarmist, yes, but as long as we are part of the UK, we stand to be dragged down with an England that has been hijacked by people with their own horrendous agenda.

It’s time for Team England to take the field. After all, it’s been Team GB for long enough.