CurioHoHo wrote: Well, you admit to supporting English people in other sports, such as fighting and athletics. Any reason for that, or is down to the specific individual? Would you pay any scant amount of greater attention to those athletes if they weren't English? Do you know as much about, say, Serbian athletes?
Admit! What am I, a separatist?  I struggle to understand what knowing about Serbian athletes has to do with not liking the England football team as an entity.
Quote: I would find it weird to go to Spain, find a group of people passionate about football, and for them to hate their national side.
Again, not weird. Statistically unlikely, but if deviation from the norm = weirdness, then kill me now.
Quote: Football is our most popular sport, and contrary to a lot of the bollocks talked, we're actually pretty good at it. It would seem weird to me to actively cheer against a team representing your nation.
So is it ok to cheer against England if the team isn't 'actually pretty good at it'? It seems you're looking for things to argue about.
Quote: True, but people still seem keener to proffer their opinion on how much they hate John Terry the England team, and do it with such glee. It's undeniable that it's a very 'football hipster' thing to do.
John Terry is a scumbag, and he seems impervious to consequences for his numerous acts of scumminess. There's nothing 'hipster' about that.
Quote: But that's just the media's manipulation of it. If the Spanish players were in the Premier League at a top club, they'd get their words twisted a lot more and come across as arses. Craig Bellamy is often cited as one of the worst Premier League players, and yet he does a ridiculous amount of work in developing countries for charity (that he even set up). The English players are trashed because it sells players. Would they put a back page of: "James Milner! Never in any trouble! Decided when young to be teetotal for the duration of his football career!"? The only time the Spanish players get quoted over here is if it pertains to a Premier League club. The interviews and quotes coming out of Barcelona during the past few summers re: Fabregas made a lot of them out to be massive arses, and was the very definition of 'tapping up' a player.
It's not just the media's manipulation. If I watch a ten minute sit-down interview with a footballer, I'm confident that their views are coming through loud and clear. If I read an interview translated by Sid Lowe with a Spanish player, I don't assume he has an agenda to make Spanish players seem angelic. And if Xavi saying 'sooner or later Cesc is coming to Barcelona because it's his home' is being an arse, then we have differing viewpoints of what it is to be an arse.
Quote: I guess I'm English, and identify myself as such. If someone asks me my nationality I'm not going to say that I would prefer to be Italian. Just as you identify with Leeds, I identify with England (moreso than any one town). I'll cheer on England, the GB team in the Euros and the European team in the Ryder Cup. I'm not going to stop supporting a team just because of a few nobs within it, who will come and go.
I guess I'm English too. So? Are we not allowed to like different things? I fail to see why I have to defend myself here. And it's this kind of mithering that makes me want to boo the England football team even more. I don't like the English government or its royal family, either. Am I to expect an inquest on those things too?
Like myp, I don't hate the whole team. For me it's just an entity that I want to lose sporting fixtures. Like the Australian rugby league team. Or Tito Ortiz.
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