برنامج Hotspot Shield | برنامج Internet Download Manager | برنامج كاسبر سكاى | برنامج جوجل كروم | تحميل فايرفوكس

It's time to roar for your country and show some footballing national pride – before we get kicked out of the competition

It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming … Football's coming home sang Baddiel, Skinner and that man out of excellent 90s indie beat combo The Lightning Seeds.

In a sense they were right – Association Football, a game that has its roots in Englishmen kicking the innards of a pig round a muddy field before tenderly washing each other down in a steamy group bath, did return to this great nation for Euro 96 – however the champions trophy did not.

Nor did it in 1998, when the World Cup was held in France – but Baddiel and Skinner re-released the song anyway, despite it making little to no sense any more. But that was fine, because national football support – just like the valuation of Facebook or worrying a beloved family pet in one's mother's back bedroom - is not a rational thing, it is instinctive.

And, as Euro 2012 kicks off today, all of England should be roaring our boys on with the gusto with which I supported Jimmy Goldsmith's common sense Referendum Party in '97 (listen to their rousing anthem on YouTube ). But where are the battle cries this year?

I'll tell you where, they're hidden between the sensible and the scared – two sentiments that have no place (just like heavy metal music or a Simon Cowell cookery show) in the modern age.

The inns and taverns of this great nation are filled with men in England shirts with expectations as low as those waiting for The Voice, series two.

And who can blame them when even former players are joining this festival of caution. Alan Shearer went on the record to say: "I think it's the first time I can remember when we've gone into a tournament without huge expectations."

Mind you, this is a man who's idea of a celebration is creosoting a fence – so I'm not sure his words carry much weight.

But Sol Campbell (who by all accounts has no interest in tar-based preservative products) has gone a step further, telling England fans not to go and watch the games at all, lest they may end up "coming back in a coffin".

But whether they're right or wrong, how dare they take our expectations from us. It is that blind jingoistic hope that we might win that gives every Englishman the right – nay, the duty – to drink ten pints a day before, during and after the tournament. It's the expectation that makes us invest in misguided sticker albums without a thought of the cost of completion. In short, sometimes the build up is better than the bang – for want of a better phrase.

But if we are to have a chance of actually winning, surely we need to look to the history books for help. In 1966, did the nation just watch Coronation Street, have a fiddle and ignore proceedings? Was Bobby Moore telling the press that the semi-finals would be fine in his book? No, we won that World Cup fair and square by fixing it so we could play every match at Wembley in front of about 150,000 England supporters – and then, in the final, ensuring that we were awarded one goal that didn't cross the line and another after the final whistle. That's how to support your nation, that's how to play football …

Yes, there was a downside – the people had to endure a Labour government, hippies, incense and terrible music, but despite these burdens, they still got behind their team, because that's what great nations do.

We are deep in one of the biggest recessions in living memory, the next major royal event is likely be a funeral, and Cheryl Cole is still releasing singles … there's very little to smile about in Britain at the moment.

So give us this – our moment to get excited, our moment to use budget airlines to go to places with funny names of which we know nothing. Stop writing stories about Ukrainian Nazis, and stop telling people it doesn't matter if we win or lose – it does.

I urge you, the people of England to polish off your pet lions, put your chainmail on and ready yourself to fight (in a metaphorical sense – by drinking and shouting at the telly).

Just As Lord Kitchener said in 1914, YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU.

I'm off to enjoy a stiff shower™ and a cold drink before the games begin – it ain't half hot here in Ha Noi. Read More

هل تريد وضع المحتوى السابق فى موقعك او مدونتك مجانا؟؟
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.

موضوعات عشوائية

الارشيف