The Guardian Gets Its Mittens
After reading Ian Winwood's saucy sally on our local hockey club, I thought, 'hey, writing for one of the world's most respected news sources doesn't look so hard after all!' So I fortified myself with some Pimm's and decided to share my thoughts from 'across the pond' as I believe they say. I think that Ian will be tickled, in the spirit of 'play up and play the game', let the other fellow get a decent bite at the crumpet, the Battle of Ulundi and all that. Please check his article out first and then read my feeble attempt at a riposte from the colonies. Innit?!
So the one time I went to London (which basically seemed the same as Glasgow to me, right down to the shell-suited mobs of alcopop swigging, shiv-wielding youth roaming the streets) I headed back to my hotel and turned on Fox News. I always say there's no better way to get inside a culture than by sitting in an anonymous room and watching cable.
After a while, I started to wonder where the hell the NASCAR highlights were. I noticed that in England, they spend a lot of time talking about football. England really is the football capital of the world. It invented the game, and was kind enough to let everyone beat them at it, it has Wembley, the rebuilt national stadium everyone hates, and it has the English national football team. Who suck.
The last time the English team won anything, it was when the World Cup was held on their own home turf back in 1966. Even then, they were aided by shocking biased refereeing decisions in their games against Argentina and West Germany, and anyways, that wasn't even much of an accomplishment. No real World Cup this, they basically beat 1/3 of Europe and a couple South American sides. And talent? Robinho and Thierry Henry weren't even born! How hard could it have been? Since then, they have never advanced to a major final, while even minnows like Denmark and Greece have taken home major international honours. Maybe the problem started when England's prime minister, and therefore an accurate stand in for the football team and all their fans, Margaret Thatcher, declared war on Argentina for no good reason other than to distract people from her campaign of setting Britons against each other and then tearing society apart to sell it to the highest bidder. Since then, Argentina has won the World Cup once (beating England on the way thanks to two sublime Maradona goals) and advanced to another final. Coincidence?
Anyways, even though it's been FORTY TWO YEARS since England won anything, their deluded supporters continue to cheer for the team of their birth, wildly backing go-nowhere losers cause it's 'the team they've cheered for all their lives' or something. Although rumours of it being hard to get into England games is probably vastly overstated, cause I went to the Maracana one time and it was half-empty. Granted, there wasn't a match on that day, but still! Why would the default national team of 50 million people get any support, anyways? If they had any self-respect they would have taken out German citizenship years ago. Yet they continue to live in England and hope they will win again. What arrogance! Those colossal pricks!
So is it good for the game to see England win? The world needs Togo and Uruguay too, you know. Just to be. Nations. Heavy. I dunno, I've been writing this column for a whole 15 minutes and now my head hurts. In conclusion, England LOLZ ROFLcopter .
Can I have a job now?
So the one time I went to London (which basically seemed the same as Glasgow to me, right down to the shell-suited mobs of alcopop swigging, shiv-wielding youth roaming the streets) I headed back to my hotel and turned on Fox News. I always say there's no better way to get inside a culture than by sitting in an anonymous room and watching cable.
After a while, I started to wonder where the hell the NASCAR highlights were. I noticed that in England, they spend a lot of time talking about football. England really is the football capital of the world. It invented the game, and was kind enough to let everyone beat them at it, it has Wembley, the rebuilt national stadium everyone hates, and it has the English national football team. Who suck.
The last time the English team won anything, it was when the World Cup was held on their own home turf back in 1966. Even then, they were aided by shocking biased refereeing decisions in their games against Argentina and West Germany, and anyways, that wasn't even much of an accomplishment. No real World Cup this, they basically beat 1/3 of Europe and a couple South American sides. And talent? Robinho and Thierry Henry weren't even born! How hard could it have been? Since then, they have never advanced to a major final, while even minnows like Denmark and Greece have taken home major international honours. Maybe the problem started when England's prime minister, and therefore an accurate stand in for the football team and all their fans, Margaret Thatcher, declared war on Argentina for no good reason other than to distract people from her campaign of setting Britons against each other and then tearing society apart to sell it to the highest bidder. Since then, Argentina has won the World Cup once (beating England on the way thanks to two sublime Maradona goals) and advanced to another final. Coincidence?
Anyways, even though it's been FORTY TWO YEARS since England won anything, their deluded supporters continue to cheer for the team of their birth, wildly backing go-nowhere losers cause it's 'the team they've cheered for all their lives' or something. Although rumours of it being hard to get into England games is probably vastly overstated, cause I went to the Maracana one time and it was half-empty. Granted, there wasn't a match on that day, but still! Why would the default national team of 50 million people get any support, anyways? If they had any self-respect they would have taken out German citizenship years ago. Yet they continue to live in England and hope they will win again. What arrogance! Those colossal pricks!
So is it good for the game to see England win? The world needs Togo and Uruguay too, you know. Just to be. Nations. Heavy. I dunno, I've been writing this column for a whole 15 minutes and now my head hurts. In conclusion, England LOLZ ROFLcopter .
Can I have a job now?
Ha, Winwood got merked!
And thats why we kicked their asses in WW2!