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Conflicted sigh

It's hard work maintaining an interest in England Football (caps intentional). Please don't get me wrong, from the first world cup I can recall (Mexico 86) through the horrors of the 88 european championship, the zeitgeist shifting italia 90, the less said the better euro 92, the abortion of a qualifying campaign for USA 94, the worrying jingoism of euro 96, the drewery years, the keegan years (drop hand grenades!), cashgate, cripplegate, brollygate, I've been there. But really, in all honesty, I'm finding it hard to get worked up about this.

I'll confess, I don't have half the emtional investment in the england football team that I do in the rugby side, and only a quarter of that which I have in the cricket team. But, I suspect, the crucial difference is those sides don't seem like a bunch of whinging, overpaid primadonna arseholes with a deep and overriding conviction that the world revolves around their limited talents. Terry's self-important pronouncements being a case in point, Gerrard's unreported thuggery being another. This blog has already made its feelings on Ashley Cole's qualities as a human being perfectly clear. And yet, and yet, I still find myself wanting them to do well because, well, it's england, dammit.

But hark, what's this? Why, it's the tabloids riding rapidly to my rescue

Thanks lads!


See,now, whilst I'd still like an england win, a loss in the knowledge that it'll upset this fucking shower suddenly becomes a great deal easier to bear.

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