Capello the immigrant and the truth about England
Some time ago (although it seems like only yesterday) I wrote that Steve McClaren shouldn't be blamed for England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008*. And so it is again. The game of scapegoating for England's World Cup failures had found an early target in Rob Green, but memories of his butterfingered silliness are fading away. Now the new target is Fabio Capello, or more specifically, foreigners in general.
It's a simplistic narrative which I've covered time and time again here with regards to other matters - in a lot of ways it's one of the defining narratives of our time. Labour blame immigration for losing them the election. The victorious Coalition plan to crack down on skilled immigrants - that's skilled immigrants - just to make a point, blaming them for unemployment. Our news narratives blame immigrants for everything from crime to unemployment to the erosion of the 'British way of life'. It's got to the point now where toads like Leo McKinstry can make a healthy career out of peddling this bullshit time and time and time after time - he even pre-empted the latest soul-searching with a particularly poisonous article about how immigration had wrecked the England football team's chances in South Africa.
When in doubt, blame immigration. If you're looking for someone to fit up, pick on the immigrant. It's easier that way, because it means you don't have to address any of the difficult stuff. Tabloids and Governments alike enjoy blaming immigrants - tabloids because it's the faceless bogeyman and taps into the fears of middle-class white folk in Surrey who rarely see a brown face but just don't like the unknown; Governments because everyone needs a scapegoat, and it's hard to assess the impact of immigration on society in such a short space of time, and it means you can deflect attention away from the real reasons why unemployment is rising, why the economy is shot, why people are feeling the pinch, and so on.
Fabio Capello is, after all, an immigrant from the EU, doing a job that a UK resident could have done. He is that which we have been told to dislike. Could things be really so different if 'Arry stepped in from White Hart Lane and did a bit of cockney mooching around the touchline, and played something other than a 4-4-2? Is that all it would take to take a team of flops whose first touch bounces off their knees 20 yards and out for a throw-in into a bunch of world-beaters? Probably not. But that doesn't matter. People feel happier with an Englishman in charge of England. Pity for McClaren that he wasn't good enough, although it wasn't really his fault in so many ways. He was stuck with the same 'Golden Generation' who can't pass, tackle or shoot as well as their counterparts from younger footballing nations. He was stuck with the same expectations from players and public alike - and the same sense of entitlement.
England don't deserve to reach the finals of any tournament. They don't get a bye to the group stages just because they're England - they have to earn everything out there. But there is a whiff of entitlement about the players, a sense that they belong in the World Cup and that everyone else is just making up the numbers. The media buy into this too - when the group draw was revealed, the Sun's headline was EASY using the words England, Algeria, Slovenia and Yanks to make up the acronym. There's a sense that England deserve to win something, because of the Premier League, and, well, that's about it really.
Now I don't begrudge the players' thousands of pounds a week for turning up and doing their jobs - that's fair enough by me, and they pay their taxes, so that's not the reason in itself. It's the idea that stuff leaks out about how they think they should be playing. Where do you think all that stuff about Steve Gerrard being better behind Rooney came from? Did loads of journalists all come to the same conclusion? Or did someone have a word? When John Terry muttered about Joe Cole (who was shit when he came on against Algeria) deserving a place in the side, he was just being unsubtle, because he did it on the record. That's not the way it's done, traditionally. And then you see the presence of David Beckham lingering around everywhere in the background - a reminder of another of the 'Golden Generation' who isn't going anywhere, who once was top dog and decided where he would play on any given occasion, even in a ridiculous 'quarterback' position which led to defeat against Northern Ireland. But who got the blame? The manager. When in doubt, blame the manager. Blame everyone except the players.
You have to wonder whether anyone can really be a successful manager of an England team. The Premiership might be exciting to watch, but English players aren't learning their craft well enough to convert it into tournament success. So few English players bother going to Europe to learn. As we've seen, top-level football commentators know next to nothing about many other leagues in Europe. It's that English arrogance - we've got the best league in the world, why should we bother looking at any others? Why bother to see how other countries do it? We're better than them! Give McClaren his credit, he's made a success in Europe and he's moved on and moved up. Have the players who once performed so badly under him in England shirts? Probably not.
It's not xenophobic to say that foreign players are stopping English players from getting a chance in the Premier League. But it is wrong to imagine that foreign players are the main reason. If English players were better and more skilful, for example, they'd push the imports out on merit. Is it a question of the immigrants undercutting wages, as is the accusation with other trades? Probably not. I'm not even going to blame the Murdoch millions for ruining football. I can't stand the man as much as anyone else, but that's not the cause. I just seem to get the impression that in other countries, like Germany - who fully deserved their victory yesterday - the national league and the national football organisation work together to try and prepare things as best as possible. In England, that doesn't appear to me to be the case. The Premiership exists to hoover up money. Anything that jeopardises that - a winter break, fewer matches, whatever - will be rejected. It's as simple as that.
Capello will probably go, I should imagine. The pressure will mount on him, as it did against all previous managers. The tabloids have already started. Presumably there will be unpleasant intrusion into the private life, just as there was with Rob Green, long-lens pictures, and all sorts of ghosts from the past waiting to sell their dirty tales for a few quid. The soul-searching will carry on. Why can't England win? For me, the answers are simple, and I say all this as an England fan. We aren't good enough. The players are overrated. Technically, we lag behind most other nations, who are well organised and coached. The players demand they play where they want to play, in the systems they play for their club sides, rather than fit together for a common purpose in, you know, a team. The top dogs demand that they do whatever they want, and these demands find a way of ending up in the papers. Managers aren't listened to. That won't change with Honest 'Arry coming in. It won't be long before the first player who gets dropped starts grumbling from the touchline, or the first player who feels he'd rather be playing there rather than here starts making it known.
And so it all starts again. Blame the immigrant. Blame the foreign manager. Blame the foreign players. Blame everyone except the star striker who wasn't good enough, the captain who wouldn't play where he was told to play, and the others who decided not to turn up in South Africa. Blame, blame, blame. But it won't change anything. And we'll be back here again soon enough after another tournament knockout, another non-qualification, head-scratching again. There can't be anything wrong with England... they deserve to win, don't they?
* Re-reading it now with the benefit of hindsight, a few things spring to mind. McClaren may not have been good enough at the time but he's marked himself out as a decent club coach. He was out of his depth with England at the time, but you have to wonder who really would be 'in their depth' with that job.
You jammy, jammy so-and-sos
This marvellous piece of television captures a feeling I've had about some of the miseryguts commentators at the World Cup:
Do you know what I mean*? Here are these coves being shuttled out to one of the most amazing countries in the world, to watch the greatest sporting event on the planet, and not only is it free, they're actually getting ruddy well paid for it. You'd suspect that even the hardest-hearted of human beings would think to themselves, well, I've lucked out a teensy weensy bit here, best be thankful for this most glorious of opportunities and thank my oh-so-spectacularly lucky stars that I've been afforded this wondrous chance, through my own hard work and a little bit of being in the right place and the right time, to actually get paid real money - real actual money, and not shabby amounts of money at that - for talking about football, and get as much free nosebag as I can stuff into my gob on expenses, and a hotel room, and flights, and, well, you know, I mean it could be worse, couldn't it?
You might hope that level of humility might be in evidence, but not everywhere, I'm afraid. When you listen to the likes of Alan Green whining away about everything and anything; or Mark Lawrenson complaining that the football isn't quite as diamond-perfect as it otherwise might have been; or Adrian Chiles sitting there with the look on his face somewhere between having lost his car keys down the back of the settee and having just scented a particularly ripe fart coming from somewhere in the general direction of Andy Townsend's chair - you might be forgiven for thinking that they're really not enjoying themselves.
Perhaps it's reverse psychology. Maybe these guys are thinking "Gee, I really struck gold here. But I'd better make out that I'm not having such a great time, in case everyone back home thinks I'm rubbing their noses in it." Perhaps. But I don't think so. I think they're genuinely fed up with having to go through the onerous business of watching loads of free world-class football, then watching loads more free world-class football, then doing it all again, and then receiving a jolly nice cheque at the end of it all.
@Ogrizovic and I were wondering the other day whether Lawro and Greeny meet up at the end of every day, after a hard slog of being in the sunshine and getting free hospitality and top-drawer sporting entertainment, and then complain about everything else, maybe a bit like this:
Lawro: Tell you what, Greeny, the Rolls-Royce that brought me here had a slightly flickery courtesy light in the self-closing doors.
Green: Absolutely dire. Dire. Woeful. Lawro, this is the worst three-Michelin-star restaurant I've ever been in, well this week anyway.
Lawro: Terrible Chateau Lafite, this, Greeny. Uninspiring.
Green: It's not the 1982 vintage, is it? What kind of animals do they think we are? Folks, this is truly awful. We're only five minutes in to this 18-course dinner in one of the world's finest restaurants, and already the signs aren't good.
Lawro: I'm not impressed by this diamond-encrusted truffle pate, Alan. What were they thinking?
Green: I've had some bad meals in my time, but this is really miserable. Poor. Really poor. The cutlery is only 9-carat gold, for goodness' sake. And the football-pitch-sized ice sculpture of Guernica over there is particularly uninspiring.
Lawro: Roll on dessert, Alan. Roll on dessert.
Still, maybe that's why they made it. While most of us would be bouncing off the walls, screaming "Ohmygod! Ohmygod! I'm at the World Cup watching football and getting paid for it! Sex wee!" it takes someone particularly phlegmatic to shrug off those feelings of delirium and make the experience sound so crushingly unpleasant that you almost end up wanting to send them a Red Cross parcel. Or maybe the World Cup's rubbish, and it's no fun having to watch it all...? Hmm. I know what I think.
* I like the way Fry actually hits Laurie at the end, then looks concerned he might have hurt him, but has to carry on anyway.
Experts and plebs
This wonderful article by Tom English at the Scotsman is well worth a read, whether you love football or not. It's a marvellous skewering of the way in which TV World Cup pundits have revelled in their own ignorance of world football, which to me is symptomatic of the way some elements of the media approach a lot of things, not just sport. As the writer says:
Before the Algeria versus Slovenia game in Group C on Sunday, Shearer seemed to be speaking for the entire BBC panel when he said, "Our knowledge of these two teams is limited." Limited! What the former England striker was saying was that he hadn't done his homework, that he hadn't spoken to any of his vast array of contacts in the game, hadn't tapped into the BBC's huge research machinery, hadn't even bothered, seemingly, to peruse the internet for some background on Algeria and Slovenia or even flick through a newspaper or a magazine. Shearer was content to sit in front of the cameras and tell the viewers that, really, he didn't know much. Hardly a revelation to those of us who have groaned our way through his anodyne commentaries in the past, but embarrassing all the same.
That's exactly it. The English article is one of those brilliant pieces that makes you realise just why you've been so annoyed with something. I've been sitting there watching the World Cup matches with a sense of irritation, not quite knowing why; but something was bugging me.
Now I realise: it was the lack of being bothered to do their actual jobs that was getting to me so much. Here are former professional footballers, paid handsomely to give an insight into World Cup football, yet they can't be bothered to do the simplest of research into the players, the teams, the grounds, the country, the tournament, anything. When one of them tries to learn something about a new player, they get laughed at by their colleagues:
In a six-and-a-half minute introduction just one player out of the 22 on show was given a name-check, and here is how it happened.
Lee Dixon: "Slovakia have got some decent players, Hamsik, the pick of them. Young player, plays on the left side."
Gary Lineker: "He's at Napoli."
Lee Dixon: "That's right."
Alan Hansen (chuckling): "Somebody gave you him, by the way."
What Hansen meant, I think, was that his colleagues must have been fed the Hamsik reference by another party, that they couldn't have come up with his name all by themselves. It's not like Dixon or Lineker produced a dossier of facts about Hamsik, a file of information on who he is and where he has been. All they did was mention his name and the fact that he was rather good. That was it. Hansen seemed to think this was worthy of a gently-mocking put-down, as if the other two were some kind of class swots. As such, he was almost revelling in his own ignorance.
Here are people who should know more than we do, but they don't. In a lot of ways, you're already ahead of them if you've bought a few packets of Panini stickers for the kids' album because you know who the players are. It shouldn't be that way. These people are being paid to be experts, yet they're sitting back and approaching every game like a pleb. They talk only about the players they've heard of - Argentina is Messi and Tevez, for example; South Korea is Ji-Sung Park - from the Premiership or the Champions League, and that's that. No bothering to look any further. There is no world of football outside of England, or the top teams in Europe - everyone else is just ballast. Just spin out some old flannel about shocking defending and put some whizzy circles around players in the replays at half-time, and that's job done. It's crass, ineffective, tedious, lacking in insight, and downright contemptuous of the vast majority of footballers and teams at the World Cup.
As a blogger, you're always going to be seen as a pleb. Which is fair enough. A lot of the time we're not experts, just enthusiastic amateurs. And there's nothing wrong with people who aren't necessarily experts making comments on subjects they haven't done a PHD in. You don't need to be a climate scientist to have a view on global warming, for example; but in order to make a coherent case that stands up to scrutiny, you have to be respectful towards the evidence, work hard at your research and understand the issues. Well, in my view, that's what you need for a coherent case, anyway. And my view is only the view of a pleb.
I think what irritates me most about all kinds of media coverage, be it of science or sport or politics, is the assumption that we're all plebs, and if you don't present something in such a way as some thicko with the attention span of a gnat will understand it while munching on a bacon sandwich, you've somehow failed. It's aiming miserably low, but time and again we see it. Every now and then you get someone like Tom English who stands up and says "Enough is enough!" and thank goodness they do; I dare say there must be dozens of frustrated journos who would love to present their stories in a slightly complicated way, trusting the readers to have a bash at it and maybe be bright enough to grapple with something other than The Hungry Caterpillar levels of complexity, but who are constantly finding their attempts thwarted. I hope so, anyway. I like to think the best of everyone.
See, I don't think most people are plebs. Maybe they are, and I'm just being naive. But I don't. I think a lot of the people who write stuff under news stories on the web, or who phone up Jeremy Vine, are plebs, but that could well be because they're self-selecting plebs who have the time on their hands, the smouldering sense of self-righteousness and the sheer determination to get their dumbo voices heard. It might not be that they're representative of anything other than themselves.
So why treat everyone as if they are plebs? It irritates me. I'm not bloody stupid; why should people have to treat me as if I might be? Why not just aim high and trust your audience have the ability to look stuff up that they haven't heard of before, or might even appreciate things in a little more depth? I know Ben Goldacre (among others) often complains that a science story, say, in a national newspaper might be treated as if its readers are dimwits; whereas a Test cricket match in the same edition will assume plenty of knowledge, or at the very least a basic grasp of the subject. And I can see the frustration. Not just with science v sport, but news v sport, or even at times sport v sport. We're so often assumed to be mugs, maybe we end up being conditioned that way and responding as mugs. Maybe that's where the kneejerk internet comments come from, or the Bring Back the Birch Brigade on radio phone-ins. Or maybe they're all correct, and I'm the one who's in a tiny minority of wrong. Who knows. I don't. I'm just a pleb.
Somehow, though, that just won't do. I get annoyed with the mainstream media's wilful ignorance because they should be better than that, and I expect more. I don't want them to treat me like a pleb; I want them to give me a bit more credit than that. It annoys me that, at times though certainly not exclusively, I've seen bloggers be more thorough and diligent, and give their readers more credit, than journos. It shouldn't be that way. But I think bloggers research hard and know their stuff because they're conscious of being labelled as know-nothing hobbyists.
The trouble is, as I see it, experts are being diluted, when people like the Taxpayers Alliance or MigrationWatch are treated as such for the purposes of 'getting a quote' for a news story. Experts aren't there just to provide quotes to bulk out otherwise flimsy tales; I think they're there to provide analysis, insight and information. Plebs are now experts. Astroturf pressure groups become part of Government - now former TPA people are overseeing cuts for the Coalition, having been hired, at taxpayers' expense. Plebs can become experts just by calling themselves experts. I don't think that's good enough. And then you have 'experts' like the World Cup pundits who go out of their way to behave like plebs.
I think the only conclusion I can come to is this: anyone can provide insight if they've got the willingness to do the research and analysis, whether they have the background or not. I don't want all football commentators to be ex-pros. They don't have to be. Perhaps a former player has a pretty substantial head start on Dave down the pub - but if Dave down the pub bothers to do his research, while a former player just thinks he can turn up and talk about only the people he's heard of, I'd rather hear what Dave's got to say. At least he doesn't treat me like a mug.
Rob Green the scapegoat
Don't get me wrong. The butterfingered backstop cost England a goal against the USA. He knows that, and he's been man enough to admit it. (Some have rather cruelly pointed out his handling of the criticism has been better than his handling of the Jabulani.) But what I wonder is whether he deserved what he got yesterday morning. The sarky little jokes are, I suppose, ahem, par for the course:
Although long-lens pap pictures of someone playing a round of golf...? I suppose the one thing that would really annoy you more than anything when you're trying to get over the biggest error of your entire career is knowing that some bastard with a massive camera is following you around a golf course, praying that you'll drop your golf ball, or slip over. I suppose it's not the worst kind of intrusion, but it's still a bit mean. We know what Rob Green looks like without having to see him playing golf on his day off.
What Green really didn't deserve, though, was this:
What is fairly sinister is that the story of Green's 'love split' seems like it was ready to go, and that the papers were just waiting for a suitable opportunity to publish - like when he made a big error in a match. (Charming of the Mirror, by the way, to call his ex-partner 'one' as if she's just like a football.) It's as if the England players will be under even more pressure now - make a big error, become the inevitable scapegoat, and you'll end up with your private life all over the red-tops as well.
The other thing that gets me is the way the Sun claims Green 'hid' his personal life. As if not trumpeting all your personal agonies to the tabloids is 'hiding' it. How dare he have a private life! How dare he hide it from us by thinking it belongs to him, or that he might have a choice about these things!
But then these are those barmy days of World Cups when the Silly Season news gulf gets filled with footballing flim-flam. News is sport; sport is news. The sports reporters attempt to attack Fabio Capello for not revealing his team until 2 hours before the game - not because it actually damages the team, but because it means they're left in the dark and don't have exclusive inside tracks to report to their sportsdesks back home; so they have to guess and get made to look like mugs if they get it wrong. Rob Green is attacked by news for 'hiding' his private life, not because there's anything wrong with that but because they feel entitled to a piece of his personal agonies and woes to fill some empty space in the front end of the paper.
So who's next for the long lens on the golf course treatment? And what other tawdry stories are tucked away, ready to go as soon as an England star makes a mistake? England had better hope they start winning, or the feelgood factor will turn to poison. And even if they do win, they won't be safe from it.
Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonk
In my view you can only complain about the vuvuzela if you don't own (1) a lawnmower, (2) a hedge trimmer, (3) a hoover, (4) an angle grinder, (5) a yappy dog, (6) young children who SHOUT ALL THE TIME, (7) a motorbike, (8) a Chris de Burgh album, (9) a tumble dryer or (10) an annoying cough that sounds like you're gargling with tarmac every half-an-hour.
We all make annoying noises. Some of us make annoying noises in the right place - for example, a football ground - and others of us make annoying noises in the wrong place - like in the back garden next to mine, when it's a peaceful summery afternoon, and the rain has just subsided long enough for me to kid myself that it might be a nice day, before you start up whatever fucking dreadful buzzing shit noise you've decided to wreck my afternoon with, just to trim some fucking branches, or a bit of your poxy lawn, or whatever it is.
We've all got vuvuzelas. We've all got noises that piss us off. We've all got things that irritate us. For me, a yappy dog is a million times worse than hearing the sound of a South African football stadium in a football match taking place in South Africa. I don't ask that yappy dogs be banned. Merely gassed silently and chucked into the river. What's wrong with that? All right, all right, before you get annoyed, I don't want yappy dogs to be killed. Put in comas. All right, not that either. What are you people like?
The thing is, there are all kinds of noises that we don't like. I may not like your Chris de Burgh album, but you might think it's the most lovely sound in the world. You're wrong, of course, and in a fair and just world you would be boiled alive in tramp sick for all eternity for daring to even approach the De Burgh section of HMV; but life isn't like that, I'm afraid. We really must tolerate each other's problems, each other's little annoying things. We've all got to live together. Gary Coleman's only just died, and we've ALREADY forgotten the message of Diff'rent Strokes. It's a sadness, I can tell you. *wipes away tear*
Look, it's football on another continent. I find myself in agreement with Tim bloody Lovejoy on this - do you know how this makes me feel? I want to scrub my soul with Vim to make the dirtiness go away. But he's right. This is South Africa. A lot of those geezers in the stands have worked bloody hard, and saved up for a long time, to be able to afford a ticket, and they've got the right to parp their blarey horns if they like. Oh, so it might slightly irritate a few people at home who'd prefer it was like a snooker match. Well tough shit. Those guys have paid their money - a hell of a lot of money for them - and they can do whatever the hell they like, as far as I'm concerned. If you didn't want them in the seats, I'm sure we could have bussed in a few mannequins to pretend to be South African football fans, if you'd have preferred that...?
Fifa gets so many things wrong. It's an awful faceless monstrosity of a corporate entity, blandifying and homogenising the beautiful game; but it's got it right on Africa. An African World Cup should sound like an African World Cup. You know, if it was in England we could get those traditional tremendously charming and hilarious songs about Leeds fans being stabbed, or the Munich air crash - or maybe even stuff about the Second World War towards Germany - the tremendous colour and uplifting sounds of English terraces. Or even that fucking band playing The Great Escape over and over and over and over and over again, despite England not being in a position whereby they need to escape anything (although to be fair, that might be relevant this time around. But I digress.)
There are going to be a lot of irritations in everyday life, and football is no different. The result doesn't go your way, your goalkeeper is a butterfingered buffoon (more on him and his treatment by the papers later), James Milner not only exists and but also desperately tries to get sent off within half an hour, Clive Tyldesley tells you - despite the evidence of your own eyes - that England are playing really well, when they aren't. And Andy Townsend, for fuck's sake. You're upset about a bit of buzzing in the background when that cunt's rambling away at a volume that no-one can avoid? Priorities, people!
It's weird when you think of the myths and rumours surrounding England shirt and flag bans and the World Cup - and occasionally there is evidence that people are told to take flags down, though you'll note the quote about "This is not about offending other people" tucked away down the bottom - that now English people are grumpily talking about banning something several thousand miles away which represents another nation's cultural identity. I find that a bit annoying. Just as England flags and shirts and so on should not be banned (and in the vast majority of cases are never banned), how dare we get pissed off with local people enjoying their World Cup in the way they enjoy football. It smacks of a cultural superiority complex. What if South Africans get pissed off with seeing fat English bastards jumping up and down with their shirts off when they're watching the Premiership? Can they tell us to stop? Should they be allowed to? What if England won the rights to stage the World Cup in 2018, would we be happy with countries 1000s of miles away telling us how we should attend matches? I don't bloody think so.
No. Fuck it, the vuvuzela is a marvellous thing. If people want to blow their horns, they should be allowed to. Any move to ban it would make the South African World Cup a much poorer affair, a much more bland and homogenised thing. Do we really want that? I know I don't. Carry on honking, South Africa.
England v USA: BP, Obama and the World Cup
I can't help thinking that there's a whiff of "news is sport, sport is news" about the Obama-bashing in the papers, especially in the run-up to the England v USA World Cup match at the weekend. You might think that the Express's effort
was the worst of the bunch - it's certainly less mature than the little fella in the St George flag on the right of the page - but it bears comparison with the Telegraph's fear-dripping bogeymanification of Obama yesterday
Really? Really Obama's boot on the throat of British pensioners? Is it really his fault that BP and their subcontractors created an enormous oil disaster? Should we all just forget about it because BP has (had) the word "British" in its company name, even though a rather large proportion of its shareholders are not British, and actually - well what do you know? - American.
But no. This must be about the big evil American bogeyman battling against our brave British BP boys. This must be "news is sport", so there can't be anything remotely complicated or nuanced about the situation. Therefore: Obama is the villain of the piece, wrecking 'our pensions' because he's a nasty man; and poor old BP were just trying to do their best, and if they created a massive slick that's wrecking wildlife, well who cares about that; these are OUR PENSIONS for God's sake!
This, to me, is the kind of patriotism I feel uncomfortable about. As you know from previous posts here I'm made up and excited about the World Cup - I love seeing the England flags everywhere and even as a bleeding heart liberal-left do-gooding bastard I feel excited about the prospect of people getting together and enjoying the forthcoming World Cup, particularly the support of my home country. I know that patriotism is a daft an inexplicable thing; but then the feeling of joy when your team scores is something incredible, even if you just happen to follow them through an accident of birth, with your national side or club you love. It's all about a shared feeling, and nowadays I feel football is much less about the chippy little thugs chucking coins as it is about families and mates meeting up and sharing a fun sporting event together as part of a community.
If you've ever been to a large sporting tournament - as I have, lucky enough to attend a World Cup and a European Championship - you'll know the exhilarating feeling of people of different backgrounds and nationalities all mingling together, all wanting different results, all hoping for different outcomes for all of their teams. But no nastiness, not that I've ever seen - no trouble and no hostility; it's even in a place nowadays where you can feel quite relaxed as an England fan in that you're not seen as being the scum of the earth any more, and you're not expected to throw tables around a town centre square and be watercannoned into oblivion. Those days are, I think, pretty much gone. And good riddance.
That's the kind of 'patriotism' I can find myself a part of - a benign sporting event that brings people together in friendly rivalry. Not taking sides between BP and Barack Obama, because one is apparently British and because my pension might be a little bit better off if a giant multinational corporation were not to be clobbered too severely for fucking up the ocean. But it would appear that I'm out of step, on this one, with the press. A lot of them seem to be backing the "Barack vs BP" idea:
Is that really what I want from David Cameron - that he should "stand up" for "my country"? No. Not in this instance. BP isn't my country, and yes, one of my pensions probably might suffer a bit if it invested too much in oil (the other fund I have is 'ethical' so I'm feeling quite smug about that, ho ho); but then that's their fault for investing too much in oil, and, at the risk of wearily repeating myself, the oil company concerned for being responsible for a massive environmental disaster.
This is the simplistic level at which newspapers appear to be operating. It's England v USA in the football, so it's Britain v USA in the oil spill. Boo hiss nasty Barack Obama, daring to hold a (partly British but privatised and actually multinational) company responsible for creating havoc! How dare he! Doesn't he know OUR PENSIONS might be KILLED? Why should he put HIS BOOT onto THE THROAT OF OUR PENSIONERS? Of course, it's a distraction from the world of pain that Cameron & chums are about to inflict on Britain, so it's understandable that his cheerleaders might want to portray our nation as being under attack from outside, rather than within.
It's a funny old world in which the sports pages reflect a sense of national pride that I can identify with, whereas the news pages reflect an outdated, ridiculous notion of patriotism towards a faceless environment-wrecking corporation. The England team and BP are both a bunch of millionaires, but at least the footballers don't do very much harm to anyone. I know who I'm supporting, and it isn't BP.
I’m England…
After all this England shirt business recently, you might like this video. If you do, have a look at this Facebook group - it's all for charity.
A fan writes…
A reader calling him or herself 'Brit' sent me this comment on the 'England shirt ban' post* and I thought it deserved to be looked at in a bit more detail:
To be honest i agreed with all the groups on facebook, until i found out the rumor wasn’t true, there are a lot of people on here who are quick to judge people just because they want to fly their countries flag and support their team in the world cup, to be honest you should all climb out of your own arses and reallise that not everyone has the same views as you.
Is being proud of you country and heritage racist?
If you went to Pakistan and wore an England shirt you would probably be murdered, and yet foreigners come over here and get a house given to them and claim benefits, why should the tax payer shell out money for these people to come to out country and sponge off the rest of us? And most of them dont even speak english! so while you sit at your computer without a care in the world you should think about all of the British men who cant get work and who struggle to find a place to live because foreigners are getting all the houses.
Brit's views do intrigue me. They disappoint me rather than appal me. I'm not so much angry as weary when I read this kind of thing. Because I think there are some fundamental misunderstandings going on, and it's a shame.
I always do realise that people don't have the same views as me, for one thing. That's the wonderful thing about multiculturalism: we're all so similar, and yet so different. Some of us wear silly hats; some of us have silly names; we all have got to live together, like Diff'rent Strokes - "the world don't move to the beat of just one drum", ah how sage that advice was, and yet, how relevant still. So my position on England shirts and the silliness of ban rumours isn't me thinking that everyone thinks the same as me at all; it's recognising that a lot of people think very differently. If that means I'm up my own arse (or indeed someone else's) then so be it, I suppose; but I don't think it's blinkered vision at all, is what I'm trying to say.
And I don't really think there's anything wrong with flying a country's flag. Another classic misunderstanding. Oh if only we could just sit down and have a cosy chat, Brit, you'd see we weren't so very different, you and I. Like you, I can't wait for the World Cup - like you, I'll be wearing my England shirt in eager anticipation (I've got the 2006 vintage, but I had the old Admiral Kit for Espana 82 when I was a much smaller child with more hair, arranged in a bowlcut - remember that strip? Beautiful, with stripes of red and blue. Controversial in a way, as there's no blue in the England flag, but still rather lovely, as I recall.)
I'll be nibbling my fingernails and hoping against hope that this time - more than any other time - this time, we're going to find a way, find a way to get away, this time, getting it all together, we're going to get it right. I'm hopeful England can even make the final - I've booked the Sunday off work, just in case - and I would love it if they did. Patriotism is in many ways a bizarre and silly thing, but it still comes surging up even in a woolly liberal-left bleeding-heart-and-proud-of-it like me. You can't choose which country you follow, whereas people do choose football teams that aren't in their back yards - I'm stuck with England, whether I like it or not, though of course I do like it.
So it's not about the pride. No-one's pride makes me annoyed. I've watched England play at Wembley; I've followed their fortunes around the world. I want them - us, if you like - to win, whatever happens. That it will delight knuckledragging fools is no matter to me, because it will be amazing, if England were to win a tournament, as they probably are long overdue to do. It would be wonderful, and I long for the day it happens. There's nothing wrong with these feelings. You can step back and say they're irrational and a bit odd; but they're there, so that's me. As a fan, I can say there's nothing wrong with showing pride in your country, or hoping your team wins a football match. Of course not! Brit asks "Is being proud of your country and your heritage racist?" to which I reply, of course not. No, it isn't racist. That's the strawman. No-one is calling anyone racist for wanting to support their team. But it is the case that some of the people who are proud of their country and their heritage are also racist. That's the thing.
And it's there, I'm afraid, that Brit and I really do part company. He says that if you went to Pakistan in an England shirt you'd probably be murdered. Oh, Brit, I'm sure it's not like that at all. But here you can see the fear that's part of these kind of feelings - fear that other countries are places where English people would be killed just for being English. Not at all. My limited experience of world travel tells me that English people are seen as being boorish idiots who can't handle their alcohol and behave like children, but people deserving of being murdered? No. I don't think many of us get murdered for being English, not even in - gasp - Muslim countries.
Brit goes on, comparing the murder of English people abroad which would probably happen to the warm welcome we give immigrants - apparently giving them houses and benefits straight away. You can try and bring up the points-based immigration system, or the detention centres for asylum seekers, or the chronic lack of social housing, or the fact that immigrants don't go to the front of the housing queue (although of course any family with children will get priority, whether they've been around for years or not - if that's the beef, then that's something separate, but that's not what people are arguing) - that doesn't matter. People believe the stories they get told - down the pub, or in the papers. People who are afraid they'd be murdered for wearing an England shirt in Pakistan - it's always linked with fear... fear of the unknown, or fear of what you think you know.
All political parties - including Labour, as I wrote the other day - are determined to make immigrants the new scapegoats. When the huge Coalition cuts are announced this week, and thousands of public sector workers find themselves on the dole, the pressure will only increase, as unemployment inevitably rises. Immigrants will be blamed. People like Brit might see it as evidence that the taxpayer is shelling out for foreigners to come over and sponge off us and 'get all the houses', while loads of people who were born here can't get jobs. Who is brave enough to argue why immigration is important, why it works, why it's a good thing? Not any of our dogwhistling politicians, I'd imagine. And these kind of views will just carry on, and get bigger and nastier.
The irritating thing I see about a lot of prejudice towards immigrants is that it doesn't seem to be racist at all. It seems to be based on a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications, and a series of myths that people have chosen to believe are true. Foreigners get all the council houses and come over here to be given benefits and sponge off the state; but if you went over there, you'd get murdered. No wonder people are angry, and annoyed, and fearful, like my new friend Brit, and it's not necessarily racist. But it is wrong. Wrong, but it isn't being challenged by politicians, who have got a handy scapegoat for (in Labour's case) the election defeat and (in the Coalition's case) the unemployment they're about to boost with their swingeing cuts. If anything, these myths are going to increase as the years of austerity unfold. Who will challenge them?
* That post has been viewed more than 6,000 times so far. Whether it's reinforced people's prejudices about there being a ban, or has convinced people there isn't a ban, I don't know. But it does go to show the power of Facebook, as most visitors have come from groups there.
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