I don't often write in English, in fact this may be the first time ever on this blog, but seeing as the topic is England.............
I've been listening with interest to radio commentary on the behavior of some of the England fans in Portugal this week, and to be fair the radio comments have been, correctly, scathing. Even on TalkSport.
There was a comment today, saying that the England fans behaved themselves in the stadium, apart from booing the Dutch anthem (which again, to his credit the presenter called them out on), but it made me wonder why England fans are treated like the kid with behaviour difficulties in school. Let's give them praise for behaving in the way that normal humans behave. I've heard so many parents moaning that "Billy does what he's told, works hard and behaves himself every day and gets nothing, but Joseph punches 3 kids in the face and gets a sticker for sitting nicely for 10 minutes."
Praising Joseph may work, he's 5, and he likes getting the sticker. It may encourage him to behave better more regularly and eventually he will learn how to behave acceptably. It's a bit unfair on Billy, but he's ahead of Joseph in his development and can cope with it. Why though, are a group of fully grown adults being treated in the same way? Well done, you can go to a football match and (anthems aside) behave like every other person in the world. Have a sticker lads, you've earned it.
Meanwhile, Wales fans will be over in Osijek having a great time, getting on with the Croatians and in no way believing that Welsh culture is superior to Croatian. A large number of Welsh fans I would guess will even have learnt a couple of phrases in Croatian. I'm writing this in advance of the game, but I back my fellow Wales fans to behave themselves even if Croatia win the game with a Joe Jordan decision in the 93rd minute.
That's not to say that I think all Welsh football fans are wonderful, of course not. I saw a fairly brutal punch up at Ninian Park, I've heard fans boo players of the national team because they happened to play for Cardiff/Swansea (days that are thankfully well behind us now). I saw a Northern Ireland fan who had clearly been whacked with a bottle in Cardiff and I saw at least 25 Newport fans smoking in the toilets at Wembley, (despite it being clearly prohibited) and not giving a flying fuck about the number of children having to breathe that shit in - they clearly just couldn't bare the thought of going 150 minutes without a cigarette.
But what's interesting to me is the fact that this rubbish never seems to happen in other countries. There are never problems with the supporters who go away to watch Wales (or Scotland or Ireland).
What is it about England? There was no trouble at Arsenal v Chelsea in Baku, or Spurs v Liverpool in Madrid. It's their national team that causes the problems.
I was educated in England in the 90's. Most of my friends are football supporters. Some went to Uni, some didn't. Some moved away, some didn't. Some were good at football, some weren't! Some voted for Brexit, some didn't. They all, quite rightly support the England team. They received a load of shit from me in 2016, and gleefully gave it back in 2018. There are at least 5 of them that I would fully imagine would get caught up in the nonsense if they went abroad to watch England, despite being decent guys.
The question is why? And the answer, I believe, stems from that education.
Remembering that, to the English, Britain and England are interchangeable and I know of well educated people who interchange between British and English in the same conversation. I know of University educated people who have no clue about Capel Celyn, the Welsh Not or Aberfan ( they usually do after hearing a rant from me mind). The English / British are not taught anything that paints England / Britain in a bad light. So, as a generalisation, they believe that they are better than anyone else.
I hope this has changed now, but to my generation the Wars were taught through this misty eyed nostalgia. Churchill is seen as an absolute hero, instead of an effective war time leader who was also guilty of some of the most horrible of atrocities. And, obviously, Russian and American forces weren't involved.
The Spanish Armada was defeated by good old English spirit, and Queen Elizabeth's speech, and the good fortune regarding the direction of the wind is glossed over.
The Age of Empire gave civilisation and railways to nations and created the Commonwealth. It definitely did not exploit the natural resources of these countries whilst purposely trying to destroy the indigenous cultures and languages. It gave them English, the greatest language of the world. The rest of the world should basically be grateful for this gift of a language despite having managed hundreds of years speaking their own languages, which were probably not as grammatically nonsensical as English. No one even seems to understand that the only reason a large number of people around the world speak English is because America does. It's because English is best, not because America is more important commercially.
And India, well, best not mention that at all chaps.
So, actually, to understand the mindset. English/British kids have been filled with propaganda from a very early age about how Britain/England is basically always on the right side. Always correct. So the love for their country that develops is narcississtic. There's no need to respect other cultures or languages because they're not as good as ours. There's no need to speak Potuguese in Portugal because they should learn English. The behaviour of the idiots is the result of a society that for 100's of years has quite simply refused to ever accept it has been wrong.
It's not the idiots fault that they think like this. Yes they should clearly be made to take responsibility for their actions, but until Britain/England is prepared to have a bit of humility about how it sees itself then this superior attitude will always be there, and as a result people will not behave themselves when away watching their national team.
Interestingly, these same people will probably be fully accepting of the fact that their club team is not always right, and is not always better than anyone else, so if their club team were playing Porto there would be a lot less chance of anything kicking off.
In Germany, do you think they don't teach 1923-1945? Of course they do, and they will make sure that the same mistakes will never happen again because they can accept that sometimes there's a period in history where a country gets things badly wrong.
I love Wales. I love Wales in a way that I can't explain, but it's a way that means my eyes well up every time I cross the border. When I'm sad or grumpy or struggling with various mental health issues, I think of my boy and I think of Wales. But Wales also frustrates the fuck out of me, because I know it's far from perfect.
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