Especially for all you colonials........

The popular misconception outside England is that our fans are arrogant types who expect victory. But our northern monkey in Scotland says this is utter nonense and reserves the right to fly the flag...

So how do we all feel? Excited? Sh***ing yerself? Aye, me too. Great isn't it?

England are usually the best-supported team at a tournament in terms of numbers. England loves the World Cup at home and abroad. We watch it in our thousands in the grounds and in our millions at home.

And yet as England fans get an awful lot of criticism.

This usually go along the lines of 'I am fed up of this already. The English press and everybody else in this small-minded country convincing themselves that England are going to win the World Cup. Not only that. They actually belelieve that it is a right. And that they can do it without effort and by simply turning up. I can't stand it.'

You hear this sort of thing all the time, year in, year out. But it's very, very wrong. I can't say it any clearer than this to England's fans'
critics: The vast majority of England fans don't expect us to win the World Cup. Right? Have you got that? We just don't.

Don't they listen to us? Don't they see how racked with doubt we all are? Do they think we don't know our limitations, our weaknesses and strengths? It's all we bloody talk about! After reading this all-too-typical criticism, I'm often left with the notion that England's critics just want to believe we're all a big bunch of Colonel Blimps to fit in with some of their out-moded, old fashioned notions of English imperialism that barely exists at all now outside of the BNP and some retired old buffers in the home counties.

Look at the almost unanimous revulsion of Ian Wright's typically pathetic jingoism this week. To most of us Wright sounds ludicrous, he makes no sense and we don't want to hear him. His daft 'pro-England' rantings are not us. Don't our critics read or hear that? Apparently not. England fans should not be judged or defined by their worst or most stupid components.

England's critics have it easy. The odds are in their favour. Only one side can win and England probably won't, so there is always a good chance to say, "I told you so - you're all deluded fools for thinking it was possible," afterwards. To these people, if we win big then the opposition are weak, if we just scrape a win, we were lucky and should have done better, if we lose, we're not good enough anyway and thus the cynic deludes him or herself into thinking their perception is perfect and it makes them feel good and wise. Ironically then, it's they who are the arrogant ones - sneering at us and laying off their own inadequacies on us.

Most England fans are, if anything, hyper-critical of their country and you'll struggle to find someone who will tell you we'll definitely win this year. They are out there but there aren't many and even they think it will take a gargantuan effort.

In 1970, it was assumed we would win it and it was as though it was our right to do so. But to think that many believe that now is just very old fashioned and very out of date. It's time our critics understood this.

Okay, occasionally you'll get a nutter who will get his face on the telly to say England 'should' be winning everything. You might also find a few fans who swallow wholesale everything Brian Woolnough and his mates in the tabloids say, but most of us don't. They pump up the rhetoric and jingoism but they are following their own agenda and in order to try and justify themselves, they claim to represent fans' views, but they don't represent the majority. The likes of Jeff Powell and his Daily Mail mob are only distantly connected with reality and we should not be judged by their work. The same goes for some of the TV coverage.

Ironically, I think England often lacks self-belief precisely because self-belief is seen as arrogance. The plucky loser is over-celebrated and the confident winner frowned upon as distasteful and brash.

Yet, England critics also often come from within our own ranks. On Radio 4 this week there were many snooty letters to the Today programme complaining about cars with flags. There was, and I'm not making this up, a man from some environmental group dragged on to say that flags made cars less aerodynamic and thus used more fuel and thus kill the planet. Yes, that's right. Putting an England flag on your car is killing the earth. Feeling guilty yet?

Others just thought it was downright vulgar. And God knows there's nothing quite so vulgar as the working class indulging their passions is there Tarquin and Jocasta? Well, sod them. Football is our culture. And we'll celebrate our culture in whatever we we enjoy and we won't take lectures on it from people who think we're crude and vulgar because we prefer Beckham to the ballet.

There are those who seem to believe that when a Third World nation displays its flags it is a wonderful, colourful expression of national identity but when England, or worse yet, America does it, i'ts a symbol of vulgar, imperialist, cultural boorishness.

This is quintessential liberal snobbery and self-loathing but it's a thick seam running through English culture that our critics pick up on and turn against us as proof of some sort of mis-placed cockiness.

But look, displaying an England flag is just a sign of empathy and support, just like when Scots or Angolans or Ukrainians do it. It isn't a warning that we're going to invade you either literally or culturally. Not any more. It's not arrogance. It's not anything much really. It's literally the least you can do. And besides, we shouldn't leave our national emblem to be owned solely by the right-wing nutters now, should we?

Sadly for our critics, England are just not really crap enough. We're not always really good, but we are not rubbish. The results show we're in the top ten sides in the world. We're not the best, we know we're not the best, but we also know that the best sides often don't do well in cup competitions, the last World Cup proved that. And even good sides struggle in cup football and need luck.

The French 1998 winners had an easy group, played rubbish for two rounds, getting through on a golden goal and penalties. Then they beat a Brazil team that had imploded before the match with Ronaldo going loopy. Now in the record books as champions it seems like they must have played better than they really did. Last time Germany got to the final and were a very, very, very average side.

It's this knowledge of the random, lucky or unlucky nature of football that gives England and indeed many other fans their belief before every tournament that this could be our tournament. But this is not arrogance or over-weaning self belief, it's just an understanding that at some point the luck could go our way. Nothing more than that. If you see it differently, it's all in your own head and says more about you than it does about the majority of us.

And perhaps the thing which annoys me more than anything about the unreasonable anti-England critics, is that it's suggested that by feeling some pride in our team and our players and in our achievements whatever they are, we are being stupid, nasty nationalists or are just plain deluded idiots - as though football is so predictable and anyone with a brain can see England are useless and over-rated.

Aren't we allowed to enjoy ourselves? What the hell are we supposed to do? We can't help not being useless. We and other teams do have a chance of winning it. Fact. Should we not have any belief? Should we not support our country? Should we not be positive? Should we not respect their talent and their efforts? Shouldn't we get excited? Should we just drown in cynicism and negativity? Would that satisfy our critics? Well, that doesn't sound much fun.

And it ain't me man. I'm not standing for that.

When I see England line up, when I see our motley crew of Cockneys, Scousers, Essex boys, Teessiders, Yorkshiremen, the long, the short and the tall, from all different kinds of backgrounds, it makes me feel good. Call it pride or patriotism if you want. I think it says something about our mongrel, compilation album of a country. And I want to see them win. Really, really badly.

Sometimes I can see it happening. Sometimes it feels like a hopeless dream. That is the England experience. I want to feel and share the joy it would bring us. But make no mistake, this is not some belief in a divine right to succeed, or in our innate superiority, it is not delusion, nor is it small-minded. It's just hope and a bit of passion for my country's football team.

We want to have a good time, we want to support the lads, we want to share and enjoy our victories and if there are failures ,we reserve the right to dissect and wallow in them as well and this is exactly what every other fan of every other nation will be doing. Why? Because we all love football. We all love the World Cup.

England's critics be damned. Say what you will. The time for glory and heartache is now. Let's be having you. Do you want some, eh? Well do you? Come on the England! Come onnnnnnnnnn!

Posted By: thirsty work on June 7th 2006 at 03:48:54

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