John Bull(shit)

Reading Tom Humphries' column in the Times today (about how he hopes England don't win the World Cup but fears they might), I was struck by how wildly partisan a piece of a writing it was. It's plain that he dislikes the England football team and sensible, mature folk will ask: why the anti-Brits hang-up when it comes to football?

And what of the Irish nation at large? We really ought to be more grown-up about our nationhood, more self-confident in our national identity. We shouldn't define who we are by our anti-Britishness. It's 83 years since we got our independence. We should have got over it by now.
But...

I still really, really hope England don't win the World Cup.
Nah, screw it, I hope they don't win a game.

It's the crowing, you see. The boastful rhetoric of the English press, the hubris before they enter every major tournament, the 'SHOCK, HORROR' amazement when they don't bring the trophy home. Fleet Street's expectations are so over-inflated they're bound to burst in the faces of those filling them with hot air. But it's the same every time, 'boo hoo we used to run the world, now we're just a peripheral European country so we expect to dominate on the sports field like we used to dominate other countries politically'. This is the subtext, the assumption that England should be top dogs every time. It doesn't work like that, boys.

And 1966. Have you heard? Kenneth Wolsthenholme ('they think it's all over; it is now'), Geoff Hurst, 'Jules Rimet still gleaming'. ENGLAND WON THE WORLD CUP IN 1966. DID YOU KNOW? OH, IT WAS SPLENDID, OLD BOY. AND WE'LL NEVER LET YOU FORGET IT. EVER.

Imagine if they won it again. God help us. It'd be carnage. No one would be spared the bloody smugness, the boastful editorials, the ' World Cup heroes ' who were formerly just footballers with names not preceded by the statement that they won a medal representing Eng-er-land.

Please, please God let them be beaten 4-0 by Trinidad and Tobago.