My tribute to the bunch of overpaid, underachieving prima donnas who masquerade as the England football team. My title includes the word 'rubbish', which is only because Usefilm would censor the word I really wanted to use, which has to do with bowel movements. We are always going on about having invented football, but that doesn't mean we're any good at it...
The only reason I've clung to the dream of the England team winning the World Cup again is in the hope that the population would rise up out of sheer happiness and overthrow those jokers in government! Football would facilitate the revolution!
Ahhhhh….. I know very little about English football. Is this the same team us Yanks beat in 1950 at the World Cup? Hmmm… and we in the Colonies do not even like the game. I can see what you are saying. Here baseball is called the “National Pastime” and even though our form of football has huge television ratings, baseball is still the sport that carries the US through the summer months. In the US, we do not have national teams except in the Olympics and such. We have no regular offering of the “best” to challenge the world. I will tell you about my love, though. Baseball: and the Chicago Cubs. I don’t know how much of this I have said on Usefilm or how much you have gleaned from some of my posts, so forgive me if I repeat myself. The Chicago Cubs have more victories than any team in any sport in the world. The Cubs have been in existence since 1876… a month before Custer’s Last Stand. In the first 50 years of organized baseball, the Cubs won 16 championships. If I do the math correctly, that is right at 34% of all championships during that time. The Cubs won the championship in 1907 and 1908. A repeat champion is fairly rare even in this day and age. And they have not won a championship since. This is the start of the 99th year since the Chicago Cubs reigned supreme. It is slightly different than the England team. The Cubs are not a collection of the best in the nation… heck, they are barely the best of a collection of nobodies. The players are often over-paid but no telly shows are made about them. (I have seen promos for the footballer’s wives or some-such on BBC America. I have not watched an episode.) There are 2 leagues of professional baseball in America. The National League (oldest and the one the Cubs are part of) and the American League. The “other” Chicago (Shh-caw-go) team the White Sox, are in the American League. Neither team is very good. The White Sox fans, every year, think they are the best team in either league. Cub fans have a battle cry, “Wait till next year!!” and the season starts in April and ends in October… and we start our battle cry, “Wait till next year!!!”… in May. The big difference between White Sox and Cub fans is this, We (Cub fans) know our team is crap and will admit it. I understand how you feel but from a different sport. You have a team that should win and does not. I love a team that cannot win no matter what. I am not making excuses. We have something called the “curse of the Billy goat.” Nonsense, I know. Yet, in 1969 we had a 12 game lead with 20 games to play and lost the title. In 1984 we won the first 2 of the best of 5 then lost 3 in a row to a team that went on to lose the championship. In 2003 we were just 5 outs (there are 27 outs per game) (I don’t know if that means anything to you or not) from going to the championship series and lost a game we were winning up to that point. Some say there is a curse. Others just comment, “We are not very good.” Do a google sometime on the Chicago Cubs and their curse. Interesting reading. Over the years, decades… almost centuries, the Chicago Cubs have come to be known as, “The Lovable Losers.” One day…..
We will turn the world upside down and win that baseball championship again….
But I do not think it will be 2007.
Wait till next year!!!!!! www.cubs.com
I think I know what you are saying…. Big Money, little results… but there is still that wee bit inside what waits with childlike anticipation….
The answer to your question, Gary, is YES. Definitely! Not just the death of my interest (I now support Togo and Italy) but the death of this ludicrous idea that England is a good team! And yes, better not mention the cricket... except the one-day series... ouch.
Does the darkness of the image symbolise your waning interest in England the team or it's fading glory, perhaps both? I appreciate your feelings - I came to the UK to live in the 90's (from Australia, so need not mention cricket) and I'm often amazed at people's attitudes to sport in general in this country. It's commonly taken for granted that England (or Britain, depending on the sport) is the best team in the world and if it wasn't for Johnny Foreigner we'd all realise it. The truth is you have to work for success, you don't just assume it comes because you're English (or wealthy). Regards, Gary
OK Jim... here's the deal... the UK has national Soccer teams for each country - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland - rather than a collective one. Historically, the England team has only had one triumph, when we won the World Cup in 1966. As a country we are obsessed with this date... hence we are constantly living in the past. To put this into perspective, we played the then West Germany in the final of that match. Since 1966 West Germany / Germany have played in 5 World Cup finals, winning 2 and losing three. England have played in... wait for it, wait for it.... a big, fat 0. In fact, since 1966 we have only reached the semi-final once. PATHETIC! When England plays a supposedly 'smaller' nation at soccer (we drew a match 0-0 with Israel on Saturday) some of the sports press write with barely disguised racism, describing the other team as little more than clueless savages in comparison to England's skillful and sophisticated team. They believe England should win these matches 8-0. They are living in la-la land. England do have great individual players, but as a collective they are 'pants' to use an olde English phrase. There are many excuses for this... the weight of expectation, the burden of underachievement, the referee was blind, they were unlucky... you name it, we've got an excuse for it. Other nations don't do this to quite the same extent... they realise that kicking a spherical object around on grass is the same whether you're in Italy, Brazil or Russia, hence anyone can do it. In fact most top national teams (of which England are supposedly one) do it rather better than England. But my main problem with soccer (a game I love, by the way) is more with the modern-day top playeres.... they get paid fortunes which they spend on ludicrous clothes, bad jewellery and flash cars, but for the national team at any rate they don't produce performances anywhere near worthy of their salaries. They go out with airhead women whose sole purpose in life is to go shopping and our wonderfully sophisticated culture makes TV programmes about them... seriously. TV shows about footballers' girlfriends going shopping. Thanks for that. I feel enlightened already, Mr TV Producer guy. So anyway, the truth hurts sometimes and the truth is this - as a football team, England just aren't as good as we think they are. In fact, they're rubbish.
Ok, I am really starting to follow all your posts. You have an eye that I really, really like. This one made me look because I thought you were going to talk trash about a rival team... but it seems you are picking on your own. That I like! Explain to me a bit more about who/what this team is. An all star team? A club team? Professional? Just tell me a bit more about them... then I have something to share with you.
No, we're not! We're rubbish! I wish we could extract Cristiano Ronaldo's genes and inject the England team with them! Then they might play well and be more arrogant!
I wouldn't really mind them getting paid well if they were actually doing their jobs efficiently... if a company director performed like the England footballers he or she would be shown the door with a 'punt up the posterior'!
Exactly my thought. In general it bothers me that people who do sports well can earn millions by throwing or kicking a ball, bicycling up and down hills and so forth. I respect most talents, but not all the money that some areas involve compared to other more significant areas. Thanks for sharing this.
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