The Dream Team

For those of you that don't know, Berwick Rangers FC have a unique position in Scottish football. They are the only team in the league who are actually based in England. In fact they are one of a handful of clubs who play in a League different from their own country.
However this isn't the most interesting thing about the club.
I was looking at their club badge the other day. It's a shield split into two halves. The bottom half is split into two sections, one has the English lion and the other has the Scottish lion. This makes sense and demonstrates the divided loyalties of the club and indeed of Berwick itself. Officially English but likes to think of itself as Scottish. The top half of the badge however shows a bear chained to a tree and I have no idea why. It just seems completely random, it's not as if you get any bears in the Borders. Of course maybe the Borders used to be a bear paradise until they were all rounded up and chained to trees until they died. Cruel but effective and also quite unlikely to have happened. I don't think there will have been many volunteers to round up the bears. It could be that the club actually performs special rituals in order to win games and the bear represents this. If true this certainly appears to be working as Berwick are currently top of the 3rd division.
Sarah (who is from the Borders) said that the bear chained to a tree is actually a symbol in the Borders in general and is used on some school badges. This provides some further insight but I'm still no nearer to determining why it is used.
So, if anyone out there knows then please pass it on. I've tried the internet and that didn't help, even tried asking a Berwick Rangers player but he didn't know.

Actually there is another fact about Berwick that is just as interesting. Apparently they are still officially at war with Russia. When Britain signed a peace treaty with Russia back in whichever period it was, Berwick wasn't under the control of Scotland or England. Berwick quite often changed hands between the 2 countries but at this point it was almost independent. Therefore Berwick was not included in the peace treaty and it has never been rectified.
If there are any Russians reading this it may be a wise idea to postpone that trip to Berwick you had planned.
Thinking about it now, maybe the bear is a symbol of the continued war with Russia? When countries are represented by animals, the bear is quite often a symbol for Russia. Therefore the chained up bear on the badge symbolises Berwick's desire to defeat Russia and win the war. I could be onto something here.....