Ben_Norman's diary

I’m not a man who loves his nation, I’m not really patriotic, I don’t get teary eyed when I hear the national anthem, I don’t really care if Britannia rules the waves, and given the choice between living in a republic or under a royal family… well I’ll even clean the guillotine for you. I am of course one of those wishy-washy-johnny-foreigner-loving-liberals which the Daily mail loves to demonise. However even I was impressed when, for ninety minutes at least, we all became Scottish.

Allow me to explain, for as long as I’ve followed any British team in any sport I’ve recognised that we all secretly accept and long for failure.  Why else would hordes of middle class half-wits spend days queuing to watch Tiger Tim at Wimbledon? We seem to have a mentality that as long as “we put up a good show” or show a “stiff-upper lip” then we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. For the British, or perhaps I should say English, watching sport is like reliving the charge of the light brigade, or listening to the band playing and drinking tea as the Titanic goes down. Yes we’re going to lose but no we’re not going to let it get us down. I’ve long accepting that this is a key part of supporting a British side, I’m fine with that, in fact that’s usually why I end up supporting someone else. That said, even I was somewhat taken aback by what must be a new low in British sport, yesterdays European 2008 qualifiers.

Here’s the scenario, due to a fantastically pathetic performance in previous games England’s chances of qualifying rested on a match thousands of miles from our own shores between Israel and Russia. If Russia beat Israel then England stay at home, wouldn’t go to the tournament in Switzerland next year and we'd all be spared another year of build up and inevitable disappointment, probably at the hands of a penalty shootout. Simultaneously Scotland were playing World cup winners Italy, and could have gone through into the tournament for the first time in the memories of most fans. So, English fans were left with a dilemma. They could support another country, Israel against Russia, in the hope that they gift England a place at the ball or give up centuries of blind nationalistic aggression and support Scotland.  For those Englishmen who have tattoos of Wayne Rooney, and think Churchill was a hero disliking the Scottish comes in just after hating the Germans and hating the French as a hobby. However, as Scotland were the only team who looked like going to the tournament they ceased to be Scottish and all of a sudden we believed they were British we invited them into the fold, we joined the tartan army and suddenly we’re all in it together.

To me this just all goes to show how bizarre, and ultimately pointless nationalism truly is. Let us make this clear, by nationalism I mean defining who you are by working out who you aren’t. For example the English know they are English because they know they aren’t French. The French on the other hand know who they are because they are quite sure they aren’t German. Since the creation of nation states we’ve been encouraged to define ourselves this way. The fact that we can chop and change this to suddenly be English if we’re playing Scotland, British if we’re playing Italy, or European if we’re playing America shows what nonsense it all is. George Orwell once wrote that international football was “like war without the guns” and this is how we are encouraged to view it. This tends to be why when it comes to international sport I don't start flying the flag of nationalistic convienance. International sport should be viewed as a vast showcase for the worlds best talent, not simply another way to start dividing people.

Sadly Scotland lost whilst Israel were victorious so English fans resorted back to being English.  So congratulations Italy, play up Israel and lets all enjoy the “must win” game for England on Monday... I’ve put the kettle on and I’m sure I can hear the band playing on.

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There was a huge cheer in Sheffield's Union when Italy scored the winning goal against Scotland.

Matt Blackall (History) - Tue, 20 Nov 2007