Stebed,
First off - one of the last words I mentioned was dignity. Its obvious from your response that you are someone who has this.
As for anything in common - well bar a common government, common currency and a common language then no, I don't believe we have much more than that in common any more. Round about the "Empire" time that so many people seem to hark back to then probably yes but Scotland, England, Europe has evolved a lot since then.
Fair play to you if you weren't jumping about when Russia and Holland scored. Personally I wasn't jumping about when Denmark scored on Sunday. Doesn't mean I wanted England to win, doesn't mean I wanted Denmark to win either, it was just a game of footy which didn't involve my country and seeing as I didn't bet on it then I didn't sway one way or the other over the outcome. As in many cases, the better team one and I was pleased about that.
And good on you if you wanted to see Giggs and Fletcher at Euro2004, personally I am now looking forward to seeing RVN, Van Der Vaart and Sneijder playing, especially after the way they took us to bits last night. As I said, anyone who plays good football interests me. If that means an English player or team then that still holds true but IMO there are better teams to watch - the nationality of them is irrelevant to me.
True the actions of the minority don't represent the thinking of the majority but as I said, disruptive kid in the school class who no one likes ends up getting the most attention. Its a vicious circle really, past actions of England fans have brought on current attitude towards England fans from everyone else.
And yes there are twats in every country, personally I would much rather everyone up here be pro-Scotland than "anyone but England" but some people (down south) seem to think that our country is made up of a majority of ABE-ers when in reality its again only a minority.
People who do think we are all ABE are just finding excuses not to like us, as I said I would rather they just admitted they don't like Scots (or Welsh) or whoever simply because they don't rather than trying to find excuses for their attitude towards Scotland (or whoever else). Basically they should try what I do - don't give a sh!t about anyone else.
A couple of examples for you. Someone put up a thread on the Tartan Army board asking who they wanted to win - England or Turkey. The majority of the responses - Scotland to beat Lithuania, thats the game that matters, what happens in Turkey has no relevance to us.
And someone (a Scot) also wore a Turkey top to the pub where a lot of Tartan Army were in prior to the Lithuania game. He spent the day getting ripped to bits, people aruging with him and the majority of the next week on the message board getting ripped to bits. By the majortity. Why he chose to wear it? - as you said there are twats in every country.
Personally I actually have a lot of English friends but that doesn't mean, just because I am friendly with them and speak the same language (sometimes
) I have any desire to see England win over a country who I don't have any friends in. England seem to be the only country amongst the UK who want this "kinship" - I wonder why?
The only time I will want England to win will be when I have a bet on them. Just like the only time (bar if they played Scotland) I would want England to get beat is if I bet against them.