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The UK's Met Office has issued a Severe Weather Warning for GMT 22:00 today. Apparently there's a shower of sh*te on the way in from South Africa.

Now don't be too harsh! I blame that duff linesman. We'd have won if we'd lost 4-2.

Mr_Grue wrote:Now don't be too harsh! I blame that duff linesman. We'd have won if we'd lost 4-2.

True, but maybe we would actually have won (or at least gone to penalties) if Crouch had been on the park at all, even once, throughout the entire competition.

It's times like this that I'm glad to be immune to football.

Incidentally, I laughed at the front page of one of the tabloids that said 'if The Few had defended as badly as England, we'd all be speaking German by now'... What a load of rot. I know what most Brits are like when it comes to foreign languages... we'd all just speak LOUDLY and S-L-O-W-L-Y.

Pete

we got what we deserved...poor formation, lack of commitment, ego and the massive lack of pace from our central defenders...

4-5-1 it should have been, barry the central defensive midfielder, gerard and lampard playing off/behind rooney...cole and swp on the wings....imagine if he'd had taken little walcott eh!

As an Englishman true & proud, I have to say that Sunday was a great day in the history of our sporting achievement. The English cricket team took an unassailable 3 - 0 lead over the Aussies in the one day series.

Whither the headlines? Whither the street parties? Why must it be ALL about football??

themagicwand wrote:As an Englishman true & proud, I have to say that Sunday was a great day in the history of our sporting achievement. The English cricket team took an unassailable 3 - 0 lead over the Aussies in the one day series.

Whither the headlines? Whither the street parties? Why must it be ALL about football??

I felt the same when for two weeks running we had a British one-two in Formula 1. With a British team no less. It didn't even make the sports headlines, it was just tucked away within the sports pages. I thought it quite an achievement in British sport.

Britain is a country that loves losers and especially loves felling sorry for itself. As such, football suits it down to the ground.

Totally agree. On the day we were drawing 0 - 0 with the football powerhouse that is Algeria, our rugby union side beat the Aussies in their own back yard. This will probably come as news to most of you. It was a thrilling 21 - 20 victory. However while this was happening the whole nation was being frustrated beyond words by the ineptitude of our football "stars".

The poor dears. They've had to go on holiday now to get over it all.

themagicwand wrote:As an Englishman true & proud, I have to say that Sunday was a great day in the history of our sporting achievement. The English cricket team took an unassailable 3 - 0 lead over the Aussies in the one day series.

Whither the headlines? Whither the street parties? Why must it be ALL about football??

I was in a very agreeable little pub with some very agreeable company on Sunday afternoon and what I saw was us very nearly hand it back to the Aussies after their collapse. It could have been a win with three or four wickets to spare.

Mind you, I agree that far more should be made of ALL the sports news. F1 being a point in fact.

themagicwand wrote:Whither the headlines? Whither the street parties? Why must it be ALL about football??

You've also partially answered your own earlier question about the Scots, Irish and Welsh attitude towards English football.

When a Scots team or athlete do well on the international stage... whither the news coverage??

Oddly, I seem to view national identity the same was as sport - I find myself looking in at other people's reactions while feeling thoroughly unmoved myself.

Identity's a curious thing.

Pete

pcwells wrote:
When a Scots team or athlete do well on the international stage... whither the news coverage??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8759984.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/default.stm

I happened to glance at a paper today, and the front page stated; "England players let us all down". Really? Did they really let us down? Was the whole of England counting on them to win? No. It is a game. People win. People lose.

I was also talking to my father yesterday about the formula 1. He said that a comentator called the team an 'English team', not British. Which reminded me of when a Scottish tennis player (is it Andy Murray?) was called Scottish if he was losing, but British if he was winning.

Don't worry, the rugby did not go un-noticed. But since I am an Welsh supporter I only watched the Welsh games. Which in both tests against the All Blacks and the South African match before, we uhm...well lets just say we did as good as the English Football team. (Though maybe thinking about it, we may have done better than them).

Grimshaw wrote:I felt the same when for two weeks running we had a British one-two in Formula 1. With a British team no less. It didn't even make the sports headlines, it was just tucked away within the sports pages. I thought it quite an achievement in British sport.

Even more impressive when you consider Red Bull is also a British team (albeit foreign drivers but the actual team largely consists of British engineers and technicians). It's more like a regional fracas at the moment, Milton Keynes vs Woking!

Tomo wrote:The UK's Met Office has issued a Severe Weather Warning for GMT 22:00 today. Apparently there's a shower of sh*te on the way in from South Africa.

themagicwand wrote:As an Englishman true & proud, I have to say that Sunday was a great day in the history of our sporting achievement. The English cricket team took an unassailable 3 - 0 lead over the Aussies in the one day series.

Whither the headlines? Whither the street parties? Why must it be ALL about football??

As an Australian, living in England, I did not get one comment today on the cricket match. Which made me....happy.

I have a question though, being new to all this Great Britain stuff. How come in the Olympics it is Great Britain, but for sports like cricket, football and rugby it is just England. Is there a long history behind that?

I personally believe that England aren't actually that good at sports as a whole. And like mentioned by other posters, I feel football dominates WAY too much. I feel that as football is England's national sport, it also adds to the unsportsmanlike (is that even a word?) attitude towards sport. Like the idea of sacking managers when teams are no good. Fabio Capello is the highest paid national coach in the world, you English people are paying top dollar (or pound) for a good manager, he must be good, there is no point blaming him, no one forced you to hire him, you weren't stuck with him.
I was reading The Sun (but, from what I hear, doesn't really count as a newspaper ) today and was shocked with how negative the headlines were. Yes, you lost, get over it. I don't see why so many people thought that England actually had a chance, seriously, they beat Slovenia 1 - 0, and drew with teams like Algeria. How about a, "At Least You Tried Your Best" headline, you're supposed to support your team through thick and thin, not slag them off as soon as they lose and look for excuses. You win some, you lose some (although, England have really only won one -- 1966). It's sport, don't take it so seriously.

It's like that old phrase about polishing a piece of sh*t, no matter how hard you try, it'll still be a piece of sh*t. England are trying to convince themselves that they are some sort of superpower when it comes to sports, when they really are not. Bless 'em though .