Observation and query

[HatterDon]

My fellow citizen of the Peoples Republic of South Texas was over here watching the USA do a Fulham against Portugal and during halftime we were talking about all things World Cup. He said aloud something I've been thinking for several years now. Perhaps unique among footballing nations, English football supporters hold little love for their national team, deride the team and players every chance they get, and have the greatest degree of disdain for their most talented individuals.

Now, I've only hung out with football supporters from England, Ireland, Mexico, Germany, Scotland, Wales, and Greece, but I have to say that this is exactly the view that I've developed.

So, here comes the query, just why do so many of you [and I'd have to say a large majority of the English posters on this site fit this description] take such delight in trashing your national team and giving it such scant support?

As they say on talk radio over here, I'll take my responses off line.

[HillingdonFFC]

Absolute garbage. You say all that but Wembley is practically full every game, chuck in the fact that England have arguably the largest travelling support in the world , doesn't sound like a nation with no love of its national team to me.
What we have over here is major frustration in constant underachieving, I'm sure most nations cop it from their press when they fail to turn up,as England have done in Brazil.
There's a video going around showing thousands of England fans giving fanatical support at the end of the Costa Rica game, abject losers getting cheered to the rafters, can't think of many countries fans that would do that.

[Holders]

I think that you both have valid points - our chronic disappointment at underachievement and repeated "bad luck" has turned into frustration and resignation. In this WC we lacked the killer touch that would have made all the difference and I wonder if, psychologically, the fans' expectation that we'll fail somehow gets across to the players. There needs to be the expectation to win (a la Germany) that breeds confidence.

On the other hand, it seems that there is a national tendancy, perhaps led by the press, that once someone becomes really good they need to be taken down off their perches. Just look at what they did to two of the best - Botham and Gazza.

[Sammyffc]

I agree that the national team get trashed constantly, but to be fair our national stadium gets sold out all the time ( however, when i've been the people round me just don't really seem like football fans. Plus the atmosphere is shocking ) . The english national team must get stick from around 80% of english football lovers regardless of whether they go to games or not. Its quite evident on social networking, pubs, pundits, media that english people just don't like the national team. In my opinion if you are England manager you will never succeed, the nation has too much expectation on a team which frankly isn't capable of winning any kind of tournament. This leads to every manager being slated regardless of what team he picks. Whether its the team people actually want , whether it isn't, whether they play well , or not , there is always something to moan about within the england set up . Its the english way. '' Generation Of Moaners '' as the saying goes.

[PakistaniWhite]

It's just a coping mechanism. Ridicule your own team so u dont have to hear others ridiculing your team. Wait till England starts winning and then everybody will be a huge fan!

[btings]

I'm just going to leave this Pablo Torre piece on English fans in Brazil here:
  http://www.espnfc.com/blog/the-match/60/post/1909545/as-their-team-exitsengland-fans-stay-defiant

I'm pretty sure you could use it to support either position.

[Berserker]

It's like Fulham fans, we know they're poo but we still support them.
Mr B recoring Ripping Yarns with Michael Pallin as a football fan. He played it to me saying this is like you and Fulham!

[nose]

nobody takes delighht in trashing a team that you support.

I happen to think most of the 'media' trashing of the team was very unfair and not a true reflection of what happened or why it happened.

We are used to england underperforming, we should be as good as italy, germany france , the dutch etc. we underpormed before the premiership and all the big money so there is something more wrong with our game than just those obvious issues.

[Holders]

We're so used to losing now, it's almost as if we're afraid to win. We played well against Italy (who really expected to win that?) and were undone against Uruguay by two defensive lapses that fell to probably the one player who wouldn't spurn them. Before that we had two clear chances which we wasted. We lacked the killer instinct and that's down to psychology/attitude/expectation. Some of the smaller countries seem to have that, e.g. Uruguay and the Netherlands.

[Fulham76]

A strange observation! We love football & love the national team. As others have said, every game is a sell out & the fans travel in their thousands to support them, no matter where on the planet the team plays. I've been to loads of England game & the support is generally excellent, especially for games that actually mean something.
For some reason we all expect more from the national side but I think we all now acknowledge that we're a very average side & years from getting close to winning anything - that's the frustrating part, certainly no hate. A very strange observation.

[Skatzoffc]

Watching England in this world cup, it is plain to see, imo, our team strategy is 10 to 20 years out of date.

All the successful teams in the WC play a high pressure game working as a team. A prime example being Chile v Spain. Three guys go for the oppo in possession. The 1st tackles, the 2nd crowds and tackles and the 3rd comes away with the ball. The team keep this up for the whole 90 mins, every game.

England simply don't do this. Us against Costa Rica, (who everyone has underestimated but also play this pressure style), looked like kids v men. We are a joke.

So, getting back to your post. Saying that we don't support the National team is misguided.

Imo, we don't support a team that under achieve.

In the 96 Euros, the fervour created around the country was palpaple on the trains and streets due to a hard working, exciting team.
Now we have a bunch of lazy, rich yobs who don't care which shirt they play for as long as they take the money.
 
But here's the rub, they are crap.

They dont care about the National team, so we dont care about them.

COYW!

[Lighthouse]

The USA is a young nation that observes the World and queries  the idea that not everybody will one day come around to their way of thinking.


Great Britain is an old nation that observes the World and thinks that World are all a bunch of queries.

[Fulham1959]

As a nation we seem to delight in moaning about the national football team in particular and also our perpetual failure to breed good tennis players.

Football fans are very fickle and moan when things aren't going right, ergo, we are always moaning.  There are a million people who would be better at managing England but not one of them is ever appointed to the job.  The players on the bench should have started the match ;  the players in the squad not selected at all should have been at least on the bench ;  and , of course, the players left at home are better than many of the ones picked to travel.

Anyone who has played for or managed England gets promoted to be a TV or newspaper pundit and they all know exactly what is wrong with the current team or the current tactics.

16 teams will go home by the end of this week and that's the way it goes.  I really believed that we would get out of the Group and possibly to the Q. Finals, mainly because of my belief in Roy Hodgson, but it was not meant to be.

It was not the worst performance since 1958 because we failed to qualify in 1974 and 1994 and the 20-year curse in terms of disappointment has occurred again in 2014.  We also failed to qualify in 1978.

In a month's time I will have forgotten all about the world Cup but I have followed England since 1959 and, come Sept (?), I'll happily cheer them on again from my sofa !!!

[Twig]

The British are renowned as a race that enjoy a bit of a flogging or similar.  Many gentlemen have, over the years, enjoyed the ministrations of a dominant madam.  Supporting England is rather similar in  that we start with high hopes but they are dashed, and yet we go back for yet more punishment again and again.

So no, I don't agree that we fail to support our national team. However, I do recognise that over years of supporting them, most of us have become inured to failure and disappointment and therefore display a degree of healthy cynicism about the prospects and performances of our team.  Foreign observers may take this to imply lack of support but it is not you just have to understand the British psyche - it's a bit like getting irony.

[Big Martin Jol]

It's very fashionable to be disdainful towards England - sometimes I wonder if it's a product of our innate tendency towards self-deprecation, in the same way that the Germans emanate confidence or the Americans approach these sorts of things with unprecedented enthusiasm.

Of course, having a national team that often plays quite workmanlike football and rarely triumphs in the big encounters helps. Although we're realistically one of the better teams in world football, the majority of English football fans gravitate towards clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea etc. When you're used to seeing your club win week-in, week-out then it probably has some bearing on your attitude towards a national team that hasn't won anything in forty-eight years.

I think I'm a rare breed in that I thoroughly enjoy supporting England and even after the recent debacle I'm very optimistic about the future. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy cracking jokes at our own expense.

[Vinnieffc]

As an independant observer (I'm from the ROI but have lived in England most of my life), I think that the high expectations usually met by low returns are the root of the issue. The funny thing is that England went into the World Cup with low expectations, got poor results as expected,  and now the English are happy with their teams efforts. An English trait is supporting the underdog - so when you ARE the underdog everything is a bonus (please read the same in supporting the ROI and Fulham !!)..

Apologies to my English friends if I am wrong, but I don't think I'm too far off the mark  093.gif

[Fulham1959]

Well put, both "Twig" and "Big Martin Jol".

[jarv]

Hatterdon makes a good point, I agree with him. England do not underachieve, they are just nowhere near as good as they think they are. That goes for the players, the press and media. Personally I find the commentators annoying, rattling on about the possibility of winning something. Someone please tell them, it is not going to happen. Sadly, it will start all over again for the Euros, when England take on the giants of football like Montenegro and Iceland.
Supporters are frustrated with results (and performances) but this will continue until it is accepted that the team is simply just not good enough.
Footnote, Roy is the best man to get something out of them. I hope he does a bit better in the Euros.

[God The Mechanic]

I think part of it is the bitchiness of inter-team rivalries.  There's a lot of hatred for players when they play for their clubs so it can be hard to get out of that mindset when they're playing for England.  Quite a few of them appear to be total arseholes too, which removes any benefit of the doubt.  That and the way our media CONSTANTLY build English players up to be better than they actually are (in part to knock them down again cos that's fun and fair...) means that any form of critical comment has to be overstated to go against the wall of "but he's a world class player" from the media.

[RaySmith]

We are a nation obsessed with sport, especially football - but unfortunately we have generally been mediocre, at best, when it comes to international competition.

Though, in recent years we have had some success -in tennis, with Murray, and cycling - two sports where we were previously complete rubbish.

Even cricket and rugby have had some success -though I don't follow these sports myself.

However, football, our national game, hyped up in the media to an impossible degree, always lets us down when we support our national team, and playing for, and certainly managing, this sorry bunch of scapegoats, has become something of a poisoned chalice.

We live in unrealistic hope, whipped up by press fervour every competition time, and then crash in despair - the press then aggressively slating the failings of manager and players.

The same things analyses rae trotted out - it's all the foreigners in the Prem, it's the coaching of kids, its the academies - every year, yet everything stays the same.

Our fans spend a fortune following the team to the ends of the earth, with great expectations, then , predictably, they and the team end up returning with heads bowed, after its all ended in tears again.

At least we can now watch Wimbledon and the Tour de France  with realistic hopes of British success - something that seemed impossible only a few years ago.