Euro 2004 play-offs second leg

I said to myself I wouldn't get involved, but ahh fack it...

Matt,

Were not your cousins, brothers, mates, were not part of "your country", nation or whatever. Your England, were Scotland and the only thing we share in common is we speak the same language.

Can you, and any other person on here who thinks this way, please stop thinking we have some sort of affinitity or bond with you because our nations happen to share a border. WE DON'T. Therefore everyone down south who supports Scotland when were playing, WHY?

We have as much in common with you as we do with France, Spain or Italy to be honest.

My younger cousin turned to me whilst watching and asked me why there were lots of grown men crying in a stadium with wigs and skirts on. You'll be happy to know I told him it was national transvestites week to save you boys any embarassment

Least it makes a difference from my wife turning to me and asking me why all those men with "compasses" on their arms are throwing the garden furniture about.

Yes we turn up in kilts, wigs, whatever, looking stupid maybe but so what. Its sport, its enjoyable, its an occasion, its not the excuse to try and carry on a war with the rest of Europe that ended in 1945.

And we can come home with heads held high knowing that we were WELCOMED with open arms into Amsterdam. The police even asked us to come, even without tickets because they enjoyed having us there. And the same happened in Dortmund, and Paris, and most other places we went to.

We are liked by the rest of Europe (you see my point now about us having as much in common with them as we do with you lot?) and we can genuinely say we have friends throughout Europe who enjoy our visits.

Can England say that - not a chance. There are many beautiful places in Europe but your average England away fan only sees one town square and a hell of a lot of police when he visits because you can't be trusted. Your trouble. Your like the little kid at school who wasn't very bright and wasn't really liked by anyone so he just ended up being disruptive to get attention.

Your disliked by most because of this, your country stands in isolation as the black sheep of Europe, the one no one wants near them, the guest at the party who is left in the kitchen on his own. No wonder you lot have such a thing about wanting us to support your in some sort of cross country kinship - because you have no other friends! Something to be "English and proud" of I am sure

And as for the people on here who choose to have a laugh at Scotland last night/today because "you always want England to get beat" - well done, you are very balanced people, your chips on both shoulders even you up nicely. Why can't you just come out and admit that you don't like Scotland, just like you don't like Wales, or the rest of Europe. At least your honesty would be your saving grace.

be happy and look forward, theers a british team in another "major sporting world cup" on saturday

Nope, its an English team, not British, if it was British then it wouldn't be playing under the St Georges cross now would it. See your getting mixed up again thinking in some way that we should be interested in your lot.

Basically lets just keep going our seperate ways. We will continue to dress silly, get pished, getting beaten/gubbed by better teams but make friends anyway and enjoy ourselves with our European friends.

You can keep on boosting B&Q's summer garden furniture profits wherever you are and being treated like a fart in a space suit. I know which nation I would rather be a part off and if anyone thinks differently then they need their head looked at.

And as for Euro 2004, I will enjoy it on the telly, I will not give a monkeys if England win games or lose games (no matter what some people may think) because they mean nowt to me. I will try and ignore the BBC/media hype when they beat Latvia 1-0 but personally I will probably be cheering on the French as they play lovely football with the best players in the world right now. Anyone from England thats going, just remember the police use rubber bullets over there and are fairly protective of their deck chairs!

Overall though I will want the team who plays the best football to win....and at least I know one team who that won't be.

And if anyone thinks this is sour grapes - its not, we were beaten by a far better side last night, we were poor and Saturday probably gave us to much false hope despite being very enjoyable. This is just a reality check for anyone down south who wants to know how we, and the rest of Europe, think about you.

Smooth Par actually summed up what I was trying to get at in one word - DIGNITY. We have it......

Crowie - I agree in essence with what you are saying, but fundamentally do you believe that WE the British Isles have nothing in common?

I think you are judging the England as a nation by the actions and behaviour who cannot act with grace - but this is not the case of the vast majority.

I wasnt jumping round the room when the goals against Wales and Russia went in.

I wanted to see Wales with Giggs and Scotland with McFadden and Fletcher at the Euro's its good for both domestic leagues.

Maybe their is a percieved selfishness about the English when they see the way people behave when watching football abroad. But this isnt a fair representation of society in this country.

People need to look at our own status as a footballing country before ripping the p!ss out of the other Brits.
Exactly what have the English team achieved over the past 10 - 15 years, the only thing I can recall is the Semi final in Italia 90.

And also does anyone believe we will win euro 2004 or get to the final - I very much doubt it.

I generally find that I do have a lot in common with most of the scots, welsh and irish that I have met but you can never escape the fact that there will always be the same proportionate amount of tw@ts in every country.

I've never heard so much sh1te from one person. i'm not english, and I have no affilitation with them, but what you said was playground bullsh!t.
you got beat at football and you start ranting on about the english.
you're country would be fcuked without the english. they bailed scotland out financially when your governement decided to invest all it money in the panama, and most of the scots won't even know about that let alone acknowledge it.
I can't agree with you that the scots are welcome by us in main land europe. you are thought of only as important as greenland or an african country that no one can find on the map. Crowie, you seem to have an over-blown image of you country's place on the world stage. england have brought a lot to the world over the centuries, their governemnt is not popular at the moment, but this does not mean that the people of england are not well thought of. when I think of scotland (which is seldom) i strruggle to think of anything that you have brought to the world. and because of postings from scots such as yourself, then you become lowered in the respect of people.
on the televisions in europe, there is never never any mention of scotland. your country never occurs in daily conversations. your people are not welcomed any more than a person from the other side of the world. at best you are just another average country, and with the atttitude you have shown, you are thought of even less than that.
the english are thought of with respect throughout the world for their achievements through history. the scots are not even thought of.

I hadn't realised that 'the rest of the world' had appointed a spokesman.

You speak for yourself. No one else.

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.

Oh boy,the competition "Britan vs ROTW" is over before it's started! :| How do you think to win!

Easy guys,Scotland isn't the only team who lost vs.Holland with so huge difference!

Just to remind you(EURO2000):
Holland - Yugoslavia 6:1 :o
Slovenia - Yugoslavia 3:3
Spain - Yugoslavia 4:3

So,our opponents have scored 13 goals against us.It's probably the worst record ever in the some serious competition! :o
But Yug woudn't be Yug without some interesting things:Savo Milosevic was the top scorer in Holland/Belgium!

Highlander,

Nice name, where did you get that from?

Not wanting to get into a who did what in the world arguement with you but all I will say to you is TV, Telephone and Penicilin - now go find who invented them.

As for your opinion of not being welcomed anywhere and peoples attitude towards us, well thats your opinion, the experiences I have had have been entirely different though I am glad to say.