Quote Originally Posted by PT_Arab View Post
I don't hate them either, I just can't stand seeing them win at football (or rugby for that matter). For me, it's the arrogance and entitlement - like the fact that they once won a tournament nearly 60 years ago, they somehow deserve to win every time. There's also an expectation - before a ball is even kicked, they've got their route to the final plotted out. Even more annoying in recent years as they incredibly manage to get themselves in the half of the draw that avoids ALL of the tournament big guns, the favourites, the other teams with a tournament pedigree.

Would I feel so strongly if we'd had a half decent Scotland team over the last 20 or 30 years? We'll never know.

I think it also has something to do with the fact that I was just getting into football around 1987/88. The Euros in Germany was the first tournament I had really watched with interest. At the same time, I was seeing all these news reports about violent clashes and guys being loaded into ambulances with brutal stab wounds, etc. Thought it was a coincidence that it was happening in Germany at the same time as the football, but no - that was the English hooligans. I couldn't understand how that was in any way connected to the football.
With England it’s just one of those strange quirks of our nations set-up! We might be the biggest nation in the world that shares a tv feed with our biggest rival. I’ve no doubt San Marino, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein etc all feed into their neighbouring countries TV broadcasting but I’ve also no doubt these guys support Italy, Spain, France and Switzerland so are happy to watch the coverage of their bigger neighbours!

I’ve not lived in mainland Europe but I’d be shocked if France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Croatia etc etc home networks weren’t equally as biased/arrogant as English tv it’s just we don’t have to watch and suffer that!

It’s just a little bit gash that we share a tv network with our biggest sporting rival who are infinitely bigger and better than us! Its like Dundee fans only getting to watch dutv 😄