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 Utter rubbish, tripe and of course b**@%*s , are some of the words used to describe my views on the game. Unfortunately they are words uttered by the uneducated , uninformed and the frankly unimpressive so I will waste no more time discussing them as I am of course one of the worlds leading experts in most subjects. The title of this article is, I am assured, ironic.
Euro 2008 has just finished and I have to be honest and say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The lack of patriotic fervour sweeping the country was refreshing as was the omission of jingoistic headlined in certain tabloids. This year, I was not subjected to the embarrassment of getting all excited about England (despite what history has told me) and therefore dint have to feel the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach when England were inevitably (and usually unjustly ) dumped out by someone better.
I tend to get swept along with much of the excitement to the point where I don't really enjoy the game. Supporting England has become a bit of a trial over recent years and not just in terms of results when you look at the merchandising you have to get. It started with a simple flag, the St Georges flag, being sold cheaply in places that sold tat cheaply and it looked nice enough hanging from a window or a door. Harmless enough , I thought, but it was the first sign of a ravenous disease.
In the following couple of years, people of an alpha persuasion (and other show off's like me) started to get bigger flags in multiples and load their masonry with hundreds of the bloody things (possibly to compensate for never even mentioning football before). The ever resourceful manufacturers of cheap tat, immediately recognised a good earner and soon, every conceivable item had a cross of St George on it. Flags , Hats, T-shirts, shorts , socks , flip flops, drinks holders, sunglasses, mugs, sweatbands, cat collars and probably automated penguin cleaners eventually carried the symbol of our nation. Every white van in the country has a crude red cross scrawled across it and everyone has flags on the car so there is no escape.
On the morning of any England tournament game you will see people clad in this stuff from early on in the day. Blokes clad in their temporary tribal colours, going to get the paper or washing the car(complete with England flags , England stickers and furry England dice) in front of a that looks like a international Red Cross depot. Some particularly cruel people force their children into the garb to proudly represent England at family in sweatshop fashions.
With the cost of everything going sky high at the moment, maybe we wont see such lavish celebrations of England's defeats again and maybe I have outgrown such silliness. Then again, I notice that all the England stuff is going cheap this year, I could save a fortune if I got some flags for 2010!
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