Quote Originally Posted by Ash View Post
Actually I did still support those teams full of those over-hyped thundercùnts. At least a bit, but there's a difference between having reservations, which might lead to quietly being indifferent about their results and success, and loudly calling for their defeat and trollishly revelling in it when it happens, and issuing proclaimations against those who have supported them (albeit in your case, I understand, in some jest). Monty's claims of intellectual consistency are at best misguided and at worst non-sensical but others have worked through that one.

I certainly respect your sense of non-conformity, as something of a non-comformist myself when it comes to certain matters of national pride (where we will often disagree), but I do generally support English and somtimes British sport as a default position - as my local team in international competition, even though I have much admired football teams from France, Germany and elsewhere in the last couple of decades. I have pride in my support for Arsenal because of family roots in both Woolwich and Islington, and without local support where would many teams be? I'm not saying that supporting England at football should be compulsory or expected, just that there's no need to go too far the other way and cùnt people off who do, and rub their faces in England's inevitable defeat when it happens.

Slight aside: I remember the Septic Arsenal blogger 7amkickoff (who sometimes writes some good stuff tbf) doing a piece about how someone he knew over there was supporting Leicester in their season of glory, and how he could say nothing to suggest that supporting Arsenal was a good idea, because Leicester were, at that moment, better than us. 7amkickoff is what you might call a leftist internationalist who seemingly despises the 'parochial/chauvinist' notions of both international competition and support for a local club team. What he didn't seem to grasp was that if everyone only supported the best teams, then why would any of the other teams even exist? I wanted him to understand that some of us support Arsenal because of geographical and family connections to the club, and even if/when we are shít, the club will get new fans because of these historical and geographical connections.

I wasn't getting all Norman Tebbit btw, not least because you strongly identify as English and support England at cricket

And please don't claim to have 'won' a debate before it has finished. There's a good chap.
Sorry, but the fact that you admit your support for the England team waxes and wanes completely undermines your dig about patriotism. If support can be contingent on factors other than nationality, then clearly patriotism and the football team have nothing to do with one another.

Besides, let’s not be disingenuous. You were clearly suggesting at the end of your post that patriotism and support for England went hand in hand and that it was legitimate to question the patriotism of those of us who wanted England to lose. That is straight-up Tebbitism.

My horror at the notion of a Spurs-dominated team winning the World Cup was genuine. I thus felt genuine relief and delight when Croatia’s second goal went in and I expressed it. Why should I not? Because some people wanted the other team to win? Bòllocks. That’s not how football works, I’m afraid. Cùnting off and gleeful trolling are very much part of the package.