Supporting England

noodlehair

I'm just wondering if anyone else has the same attitude to this.

For the last six to eight years, I haven't really given a shite about England. I've kind of wanted them to do well, but also found it amusing when they've lost, due to the fact the media and fans mostly act like a bunch of cretins.

This tourmanent though, going into it I'd forgotten about that, and actually really wanted England to do well, even started trying to convince myself they had a chance, but after the last game...or rather, after the REACTION to the last game, I think I just want England to flop spectacularly against Slovenia and go crashing out. It'd be exactly what the tabloids, the media, and the fans deserve.

Some of the articles, rumour mongering and opinions coming out since Friday are a genuine disgrace, and the "support" isn't exactly on a much higher footing.

It's actually driven me to pity professional footballers, which I didn't think was possible. I want the team to do well, but England as a whole simply doesn't deserve them to. It'd almost be more apporpriate if the players threw the game as a big collective "fuck you", and then all retired from international football.

Neutral

I am fighting a lone battle on my street here in Dhaka, where all the glory hunters are Brazil, Argentina, Italy fans....

I cannot be a glory hunter, England have never tasted any Glory, well none since my old man was a kid anyways....

I'm not even English, so I don't know why I get so worked up every WC, and then b1tch, moan, swear off them. But then come another WC, international tournament, get sucked in all over again.

Damn you England.

Unlike you, I still want them to qualify, and get to the customary quarterfinal before being knocked out.

cw1984

I can't understand how you could support another country

Stack

I think English fans have suffered for a very long time from unrealistic expectations. The gap between the big football nations and the lesser nations has closed and the premier league is full of foreign stars and the home nations have suffered because of this. There are now less Scottish, Welsh and Irish players playing in Englands top division.
So having arguably the best league in the world has had an impact on the quality of England players.
So the best league in the world raises expectations of England fans as well as a media that demands humility from the players but displays arrogance in the extreme so often. A great example of this was the EASY headline in the sun.

Normally I dont cheer for England but I will be in their last group game for the simple fact I want the players to shove all the shit down the media's throat.
Im with you, I pity the players.

Neutral

Once Bangladesh make it to the World Cup, ill be ditching England, until then, they are the team I am somehow stuck with.

Stack

You could cheer for NZ against Italy, a good old fashioned David v Goliath scenario

cw1984

Yeh but when England didnt make the Euro's i didnt support another team. I have other teams like i would like to see do well but i wouldn't be arsed if they get knocked out.

cw1984

Most people, myself included, will be.

holyland red

I used to support England since 1982, but gave that up a good few years ago (around the beginning of this decade). The Beckham and Phil Nev sagas and the "stand up if you hate Man U" chants made me wonder why some players even bother. I also thought Rooney didn't need to apologize after his Friday comments, but there you go...Playing for their country must mean that much for the players to tolerate this shit.

Neutral

Italians and a few bitter Aussies aside, the entire world will be with NZ.

holyland red

That too. I guess you can pick a team as a kid (if your national side is traditionally shit), get stuck with it and only give it up as an adult when you realize the country you support is a bit shit.

Don't Kill Bill

Nothing shakes my support for England. Crap as usual or occasionally decent, I still support them. Letting the general spastic reaction to events ruin that would be like letting the general spastic reaction to United games ruin my support for them. Or enjoying football at all.

Neutral

hahahaha....

it really does say something. My native country is beyond sh1t, I had the pick of the world, Samba Kings, argentina, Italy, the Dutch...yet somehow I fell in love with England. Then again, I loved United, and went to OT before I ever followed the English national team...so maybe there is some connection there. Wanting he English United players to do well, and by extension, England doing well...

I don't know. Either way, I'm out, I don't think Noodle wanted 'outsiders' professing love for the England team ruining the thread.

England for the quarterfinals

noodlehair

I don't get why he apologised either. He was right.

and some of the newspaper articles since are beyond pathetic. I don't understand why journalists are allowed to get away with being such tossers. If I was Capello I'd be going into my next press conference demanding answers from them, not the other way around.

Spoony Youngblood

I actually think England will get to the QFs at least. I've seen it all before in 86 and 90. That said, I don't recall booing en masse after the poor starts in those world cups. Perhaps the vuzuvelas weren't loud enough. But yeah, the media is pathetic. . .

Ixion

Thats pretty much how I feel as well.

holyland red

I actually find the press and public reaction to Englands WC involvement over the last quarter of a century strikingly similar to the Scouse annual boom-bust cycle.

Flying Fox

You should see some people in Australia then.

Actively going for Germany, Ghana and Serbia. Fuckwits.

Don't Kill Bill

There is quite a bit of truth in that. Also though some of the England hating support of those playing against England is a bit scouse as well.

holyland red

I'm not sure how many of those there are. I think many more just don't give a shite about it all as the OP describes well. I can also see the comic side of the delusional expectations and the inevitable following meltdown in the tabloid press.

yaps

I used to follow England, and was lucky enough to go to friendlies and the like as I was a football fan, but eventually got quite disheartened to hear people booing players regardless of whether they were winning or losing and stopped following them.

In World Cup/Euro competitions I wish them well and like the rest of the country would love to see them win, but like you Noods, If they went crashing out and annoyed the country there would be a smirk on my face.

McGrathsipan

its the usual hype machine in overdrive when it comes to england....the MEDIA build them up and cant wait to chop them down and slaughter them.

IMO the England at the moment are nowhere near good enough to win the world cup but I think the players believe the hype. Lampard is not that good. Terry is not that good. Barry is not that good but the press would have you believe that they are the best players to grace the game.......until they flop and then they get crucified by the same journo's that built them up in the 1st place and this happens every time.

Capello is over rated too..England qualified from a very week group and were never really tested...he's got form as a club man but managing a foreign international team he has no form....something tells me that Englands failure will cost him his job...again trial by media..

Put like this..if England went there thinkin ....right lads keep the heads down and keep working hard and we may have a chance of going all the way here...they may have done quite well but instead...with the ego's involved I would say most of them were believing the hype...thus adding to it..

Sam.G

The England fans deserve to England to lose? Why? Because they have the temerity to dream? Shame on them. What is the difference between an England fan and a Utd one. Or a Macclesfield one? Or a Luton one? A fan is a fan, surely. They all suffer from the same hopes, expectations and delusions.

Sam.G

What are you doing in a 'supporting England' thread then?

Why are the people who proclaim not to give a monkey's about England always so vocal about it? Every thread they pop up saying how little they care about England. They seem to be more vocal than the people who actually do care about England.

It's odd.

Uncle Junior

Speak for your own self.

Forza Italia!

SirAF

I support Australia, and I'm not even Australian

noodlehair

I'm pretty sure Macclesfield fans wouldn't boo their team en masse because they drew 0-0, or boo some of their own players regardless, simply because they don't like them. Or tell their team's key player that they hope his wife and kid get cancer, or turn on him two games into a vitally important tournament.

I used to go to a lot of England games before they knocked down the old Wembley, and the difference in the type of support between that and club games is substancial, and not always pretty.

I mean, if Rooney has a poor run of games for United, people moan about it, but everyone's still behind him. Two poor games (in which the team as a whole play poorly) for England, and suddenly he (and the rest of the team) are more hated than any of the opposition.

McGrathsipan

i am going dutch this time

Sam.G

I am sure Macclesfield fans would boo their team. Utd fans do. Liverpool fans do. Arsenal fans do. Why are Macclesfield fans any different? I'm with you on the booing their own players lark. That is down to tribal rivalries I think. Those fans will be in the extreme minority though. I guess you are referring to Beckham in your last sentence? Absolute shocker but I am not sure you should tarnish a group of fans through the actions of one- or a few - individual(s)

Sam.G

No, they're not. The fans were venting frustration by booing, not hatred.

yaps

The problem however is that there are a number of fans that regardless of how well the team are doing/not doing, will boo a player because he doesn't play for their club.

It sounds petty, but it's a reality. It doesn't just happen at the games either.

noodlehair

Not even close. If it were a few individuals it would hardly be noticable. You go to games, down the pub, in the street, read the papers, watch the BBC...anywhere, and you get the same shite. Whether it's the fans, or the media fuelling the fans, it's just the same time after time, and it's far from even being a minority, let alone an extreme one. It's the general accepted attitude of "supporting" the England football team.

I was prepared to ignore it, but the reaction to the last game has put me right off again. It's as if people enjoy sticking the knife in more than they enjoy cheering, and it isn't just frustration, because it drags on for days, months, sometimes even years after, and often without there even being a reason to be frustrated in the first place.

Wonder Pigeon

I think there is a kind of difference in the thinking of people who have the attitude that noodle has. His problem is with the expectation of doing well, the tabloid "EASY" headlines and such. England fans are less like Macclesfield fans, who dream of success while knowing that they're shit but soldiering on anyway, and more like, say, Newcastle fans, who expect success despite evidence to the contrary, and so people take the piss out of them for it and enjoy it when the team fucks up, repeatedly. I'm generalising but do you get what I'm saying?

Sam.G

Fair enough.

I understand ambivalence toward your national team. As a chap who grew up in NZ, I cannot bear the uber-hype surrounding the All Blacks and for that reason struggle to follow, or support, them. I am not sure I would go so far as to ever actively wanting them to lose though, but football appears to evoke more extreme emotions than any other sport.

With such clear boundaries dividing footballing clubs in England, it is fairly inevitable that some of the antipathy will spill across onto the international scene. Unfortunate but true and that is the source of the booing and abuse in my view. Wish people could cut it out but they probably won't..

holyland red

I think that's spot on. You can even see that on here during England's games. United fans will revel on mediocre performances by LFC players, expecting them to fail, whereas many will fail to see the failings of their own players (e.g. Rooney is "isolated" rather than rubbish).

Having said that, I think there's nothing wrong with growing club tribalism getting the better of international football. I think it's a natural trend that many people don't find international football that interesting. Especially fans of the top clubs who don't need a big tournament every 2 years to get themselves excited about football.

Neutral

But those going for Serbia would be the massive Serbian community you have in australia...it would be the same, if Croatia had made it this time around.

I remember at the MCG, when Greece came to play the Socceroos, it was a home match for the Greeks...

A lot of the Italian community is australia openly root for Italy...these are large immigrant communities holding on to their ties....

It is the same when the English rugby team comes to australia, and they play in Perth...the ex pat community cames it a virtual home game, despite many of them having lived in australia for 25+ years, and carrying aussie passports.


* I have no response to the Ghana/Germany fans...

Flying Fox

Yes, granted there is a huge immigrant population in parts of Australia and they might feel more accustomed to going for [insert country here]. It's not those people I have a problem with, it's the anglo-aussies, who coincidentally don't like the sport, either because they find the game "too foreign" or don't like a few figures within the domestic scene (read: Craig Foster), who go for the opposition out of spite that fuck me off.

Other Aussie lads here would attest to something similar happening in their neck of the woods.

Spoony Youngblood

To be fair, you're all immigrants.

Abos With Atitude. Aborigines For Life.

Mockney

Oh good. Another thread on how shit England fans are by someone who hasn't been to an England game for ages, isn't out here and is guaging everything from TV reporting and their old assumptions.

The fans don't deserve it? Really? Fuck off noodle

The fans have been better out here (more up for it, more jovial, more friendly, bantery, raucous and passionate) than United fans were at the last CL final...and the atmosphere at both games so far has been better than anything I've seen at OT last season...But of course, United fans have never booed anyone, or scapegoated a player, or anything like that.....that's entirely the work of us scummy shitty stupid England fans.

Football fans are all exactly the same, each with their cunts and mongs, and song singers and chant leaders. Every clubs fans are more or less hoping and thinking the same thing as any others during a game, and all of them think their fans are the best. England fans are merely a collection of most of those fans from all over into one big fandom that comes together for tournaments like these...and being out here with them (or at any other tournament inf act) is brilliant... but of course they're not according to you, they're a specific set of completely mongish fans you've decided aren't as good as your fans, for whatever reason...and thus don't deserve it... It's becoming very in vogue to think like this on this board. Then blaming the media whilst using almost entirely your media formed opinion of Enland fans and I'm tired of it.

The media don't deserve it?...No of course not. But the media don't deserve anything, they're the media. Why it is anything to do with them?

Seriously, the quicker you and Spoons join the YCSYFEUYA the better...just get it over with an admit you're a hypocritical bandwagon jumper.


Sorry for getting so wound up by this...but it's really disheartening to see such bollocks from people miles away about our support and their clearly informed "truths" about them.

Flying Fox

Yes, true that.

But I'm talking about the type of people who say it's a game for those who've just come off the boat. Indeed, someone told me this on another forum not ten minutes ago.