voorhees said:
Wow... what a well thought out and considered retort. I'm glad that discussions are adult around here. I hope you won't be educating your kids to that level of debating skill.
I love football like every other bloke. What I don't like is seeing us get to every tournament and get knocked out by lesser teams, purely because we can't play to the standard we know we should.
Tell me, would you rather we scrape into every tounament for the next 20 years, and when we get knocked out, pep talk ourselves that we had a dodgy ref, or striker X wasn't on top of his game... OR we don't qualify for ONE tournament, get our act together for the next and be all the better for it??!?!
I know which one I'd rather.
AndyMac said:
Jeff it's not just about football. When the team does well in any major competition it really lifts the whole country - remember Euro '96?
I'm sorry but it's just a very sad reflection on what's happened to this country over the last few years that we have English people hoping we lose in the misguided belief it will teach anyone a lesson.
When we top the charts in Europe for under age pregnancy, binge drinking & being ****** over by the rest of the world, do you really want our sporting achievements to follow suit. Whatever you think of the players or the manager, or even the sport, deep down you want them to do well. That's part of our culture & our way of life which seems now to be following the same route as every other aspect of English life. No respect, no pride, no belief, no passion. Just a country of angry, stupid people, revelling in the misery of being English, out for what they can get with as little effort as possible, destroying anything worthwhile along the way.
Very very sad.
Please don't be so quick to pass judgement, Andy.
I'm very proud to be British, I sing the national anthem, have the utmost respect for those who deserve it, war veterans, armed forces personnel, hard working Joe's, teachers, firefighters and police to name but a few.
The country of angry stupid people may have some[small]thing to do with English sport being poor. I do really, honestly and seriously want them to do well, and had they qualified, would have fully supported them. To me, it's a matter of one small step back to take more steps forward. Club managers do it every day, so why shouldn't it be the same for a national side? It's not about teaching them a lesson, it's about opening their eyes.
Producing something from grass roots level, so that we become one of the best at it would do alot more to turn the country around than a few ASBO's.
