Euro 2016 #3: No Quarter For Shay Given

[phantom_power]

I am surprised I haven't seen sralex being touted for the job yet

[chand]

So it's just anybody English who's been successful at anything then

Jonathan Wilkes

The Hairy Bikers

Rose West

Alan Shearer

Reckon Jeremy Corbyn could get a good siege mentality going.

[im barry bethel]

Belgium were shite in the groups, they were lucky that Ireland and Sweden were even worse. Wouldn't be at all surprised if Wales beat them.

I disaggre, slow start but getting their act together for a Bel-Ita final

[im barry bethel]

It's a shame that O'Neill (Norn) isn't English enough but also not forrun enough

[castro diaz]

As a Londoner and (soon to be) Geordie, all I say is, "You lads all voted Brexit. Get the fuck out off my cocktail party!"

That's a cumbersome opinion to hold seeing as you had a fanny fit and slank out of the thread when everybody wasn't supporting England enough against Iceland.  Despite the fact that most of them either did so out of post-Brexit flagellation, or because they quite understandably hate the unending cycle of appalling humans playing, organising, watching and writing about English football, or because the Icelandics simply seemed to enjoy playing football at a major international tournament, as if the whole thing was some kind of sport.  Although Iceland themselves, ironically enough, are staunchly anti-EU, it is undoubtedly one of the best countries in the free world.  So perhaps that's why.  A country better still than the one you have just gerrymandered into existence via a London/Geordie pact of non-aggression, whose campaign song, you have to think, would be Diamond Lights.  For my part I now declare a new nationality, pledging eternal allegiance to a Basque-Fijian superstate based in Aberystwyth.

The point being that you were happy enough to support England despite her politics, and chide those who didn't, yet at every turn you're pouring bile on the Welsh despite a lower Leave vote and a history of left-wing politics the envy of socialists the world over. 

That said I am obviously appalled by the Welsh vote (even more than you seem to be) and, despite hitchhiking across borders and sleeping in hedges to see my country play, last Saturday I almost didn't watch the game out of disgust.  How the fuck did we manage to sit a rung below Northern Ireland on the morality ladder?  I have been ashamed to be British my whole life, but this was the first time I am ashamed to be Welsh, and although the feeling has subsided a bit I felt no nerves before last Saturday's game, no mindless ecstasy when they scored for us, no post-match tingly relief.  Just a luke-warm vagueness like porridge.

That is slowly dissipating and I think my sulk with the team, if not the country, is over.  It is a squad of no ego but unity, belief and graft with petit-morts of world-class talent, the story of which would be dripping out of the quills of sports writers the continent over had their thunder not been stolen by the cod-murdering bastards of the North Atlantic.  Furthermore, they are, especially for footballers, pretty nice.  Which is why they walk around the Celtic town where they're based untroubled, playing football on the beach with local kids and their hundred million euro player goes unescorted to a coffee shop and orders the wrong thing.  Contrast this with the England squad whose every line to the media is dictated by the FA and whose one community visit was cancelled and who just seemed to resent being there. 

The Welsh fans also were also great.  Songs and flags against the monarchy and the Union Jack, pro-EU rhetoric, union talk and the eulogising of socialist hero and dead black warbler Paul Robeson (though that flag was, admittedly, mine).  Verbwhores shouldn't even like football anyway but surely that's the closest football folk will ever get to the famed CaB consensus.  There were almost no arrests, no trouble, harmony with fans of every team we played, beautiful hymns and rivers of wine, lauded by the French public and media alike.  Won't you allow them their moment in the sun?  Won't you let them be happy?  They've got to go back to Rhyl when this is over.  And they are football fans who have learnt that suffering is losing 5-1 at home to Slovakia, not routinely finishing 4th in the world's richest league.

It is an absurd and petty feeling but seeing the Welsh flag flying from French town halls and trams and bakeries, after a life-time of being told what my nationality was,  gave me and the country a legitimacy and acceptance that I've never before felt.  There it is, look, fluttering high between Poland and Portugal, just like it was a real country.  Just like we said so all along.  We have arrived.  I have consistently been told by people that have never been there that Wales is in England or Britain or, far worse, that they don't know where it is because they've never heard of it.  I have many times resorted to drawing beermat maps of my country from Las Vegas to Laos and the thought that it's slightly less necessary now, and that we are sat at the international table albeit in sport only, gives me a silly little thrill.

I don't expect or want English support.  Lord knows they wouldn't get it from me.  I don't give a fuck about being the last representative of the home nations, whatever that's supposed to mean.  All I know is that Wales are in a quarter-final and it's not in the short-lived Celtic Cup of 2011 but in an actual organised tournament with linesmen and jumbo screens and an official beverage partner.  Politics, both from them and us, has depleted humanity.  It has left us aggressive and fearful, informed and stupid.  Bereft.  There is no hope.  No future.  No anger, even.  Let's not allow a silly fucking thing like politics take this away from us as well.  It matters precisely because it doesn't matter.  Enjoy it while it's here because when it's gone, be it after Friday night or a Paris final, we really will have nothing.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Dave Brailsford lads

David Brailsford is the mastermind behind incremental gains, so I look forward in two years to us scraping a draw against Iceland.

[doppelkorn]

This'll be better than when Clive Woodward brought his technical competence and professional, modern managerial approach to Southampton.

[Deanjam]

Come on Poland.

[Eis Nein]

A mystifying difference between these reports.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Do the English players just do shit away from their clubs because they can't carry on with their blood doping and PED use? *conspiracy...*

[im barry bethel]

That's a cumbersome opinion to hold seeing as you had a fanny fit and slank out of the thread when everybody wasn't supporting England enough against Iceland. 

Can't speak for leather but personally I found it miserable seeing post after negative post from people putting their nose around the door for the first time, the sort of cunts who leave early to avoid traffic, yes we were shit and yes it was obvious we were shit but ffs lay of pointing it out till the final whistle. For 80 minutes we were one crappy scrappy toe poke over the line goal away from getting kicked out on our arses, we wouldn't have deserved it but that was all that was needed, so let the misery guts spill their bile but there's no need to piss through the letterbox till that whistle goes.

[imitationleather]

Can't speak for leather but personally I found it miserable seeing post after negative post from people putting their nose around the door for the first time, the sort of cunts who leave early to avoid traffic, yes we were shit and yes it was obvious we were shit but ffs lay of pointing it out till the final whistle. For 80 minutes we were one crappy scrappy toe poke over the line goal away from getting kicked out on our arses, we wouldn't have deserved it but that was all that was needed, so let the misery guts spill their bile but there's no need to piss through the letterbox till that whistle goes.

Yeah I kind of back this. My displeasure was with wasting my time in the company of people who only ever turn up when England play, simply to complain about England. As at all other times this thread is jovial and funny the way the countless politics threads aren't (where, funnily enough, these people come from) I felt it was a good idea to step back while they had their little bash. They've all fucked off, never to return now. How strange.

Football for me is a form of entertainment, and I get no entertainment from people whose entire lives is about celebrating failure.

Sorry my response isn't as long-worded as yours, castro, I don't really do long posts.

[thehungerartist]

That's a cumbersome opinion to hold seeing as you had a fanny fit and slank out of the thread when everybody wasn't supporting England enough against Iceland.  Despite the fact that most of them either did so out of post-Brexit flagellation, or because they quite understandably hate the unending cycle of appalling humans playing, organising, watching and writing about English football, or because the Icelandics simply seemed to enjoy playing football at a major international tournament, as if the whole thing was some kind of sport.  Although Iceland themselves, ironically enough, are staunchly anti-EU, it is undoubtedly one of the best countries in the free world.  So perhaps that's why.  A country better still than the one you have just gerrymandered into existence via a London/Geordie pact of non-aggression, whose campaign song, you have to think, would be Diamond Lights.  For my part I now declare a new nationality, pledging eternal allegiance to a Basque-Fijian superstate based in Aberystwyth.

The point being that you were happy enough to support England despite her politics, and chide those who didn't, yet at every turn you're pouring bile on the Welsh despite a lower Leave vote and a history of left-wing politics the envy of socialists the world over. 

That said I am obviously appalled by the Welsh vote (even more than you seem to be) and, despite hitchhiking across borders and sleeping in hedges to see my country play, last Saturday I almost didn't watch the game out of disgust.  How the fuck did we manage to sit a rung below Northern Ireland on the morality ladder?  I have been ashamed to be British my whole life, but this was the first time I am ashamed to be Welsh, and although the feeling has subsided a bit I felt no nerves before last Saturday's game, no mindless ecstasy when they scored for us, no post-match tingly relief.  Just a luke-warm vagueness like porridge.

That is slowly dissipating and I think my sulk with the team, if not the country, is over.  It is a squad of no ego but unity, belief and graft with petit-morts of world-class talent, the story of which would be dripping out of the quills of sports writers the continent over had their thunder not been stolen by the cod-murdering bastards of the North Atlantic.  Furthermore, they are, especially for footballers, pretty nice.  Which is why they walk around the Celtic town where they're based untroubled, playing football on the beach with local kids and their hundred million euro player goes unescorted to a coffee shop and orders the wrong thing.  Contrast this with the England squad whose every line to the media is dictated by the FA and whose one community visit was cancelled and who just seemed to resent being there. 

The Welsh fans also were also great.  Songs and flags against the monarchy and the Union Jack, pro-EU rhetoric, union talk and the eulogising of socialist hero and dead black warbler Paul Robeson (though that flag was, admittedly, mine).  Verbwhores shouldn't even like football anyway but surely that's the closest football folk will ever get to the famed CaB consensus.  There were almost no arrests, no trouble, harmony with fans of every team we played, beautiful hymns and rivers of wine, lauded by the French public and media alike.  Won't you allow them their moment in the sun?  Won't you let them be happy?  They've got to go back to Rhyl when this is over.  And they are football fans who have learnt that suffering is losing 5-1 at home to Slovakia, not routinely finishing 4th in the world's richest league.

It is an absurd and petty feeling but seeing the Welsh flag flying from French town halls and trams and bakeries, after a life-time of being told what my nationality was,  gave me and the country a legitimacy and acceptance that I've never before felt.  There it is, look, fluttering high between Poland and Portugal, just like it was a real country.  Just like we said so all along.  We have arrived.  I have consistently been told by people that have never been there that Wales is in England or Britain or, far worse, that they don't know where it is because they've never heard of it.  I have many times resorted to drawing beermat maps of my country from Las Vegas to Laos and the thought that it's slightly less necessary now, and that we are sat at the international table albeit in sport only, gives me a silly little thrill.

I don't expect or want English support.  Lord knows they wouldn't get it from me.  I don't give a fuck about being the last representative of the home nations, whatever that's supposed to mean.  All I know is that Wales are in a quarter-final and it's not in the short-lived Celtic Cup of 2011 but in an actual organised tournament with linesmen and jumbo screens and an official beverage partner.  Politics, both from them and us, has depleted humanity.  It has left us aggressive and fearful, informed and stupid.  Bereft.  There is no hope.  No future.  No anger, even.  Let's not allow a silly fucking thing like politics take this away from us as well.  It matters precisely because it doesn't matter.  Enjoy it while it's here because when it's gone, be it after Friday night or a Paris final, we really will have nothing.

WELSH CUNT

[Danger Man]

Big post

tl;dr?  Wales are now Scotland.

[Squink]

Zlatan to Man Utd, then. Should be a laugh.

[BlodwynPig]

Zlatan to Man Utd, then. Should be a laugh.

Or interminable. The Interminables.

[Deanjam]

Let's put our differences aside and support Poland against this shower of shite.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

And they are football fans who have learnt that suffering is losing 5-1 at home to Slovakia, not routinely finishing 4th in the world's richest league.

This is a great post and I really enjoyed it but it's worth pointing out that travelling England fans are many, many terrible things, but they're almost certainly not (match going) Arsenal, Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool etc types. They are generally fans of "unfashionable" clubs from the Premier League all the way downwards so definitely know suffering.

Let's put our differences aside and support Poland against this shower of shite.

I strongly feel that the sight of Ronalado and Cunt Pepe in tears can begin to heal our fractured nation, just a little.

[Eis Nein]

Virtually any other team Nani would be Most Loathsome by a country mile. Only a bronze.

I hope they beat Iceland in the final. World is fucked, seems fitting.

[Mr Eggs]

I just want to see the greasy bastard cry. I won't mind if they win as long as Ron takes a massive hoof up his nutsack.

[monkfromhavana]

Football for me is a form of entertainment,

Even after all these years supporting Spurs?

[imitationleather]

Even after all these years supporting Spurs?

Alright, smarty pants. This thread is for me a form of entertainment. And I just do not find it entertaining when England are playing. It's just relentless bile. Fortunately this is a problem that's not going to crop up for at least two years now. If people enjoy celebrating England's failure then fair enough. At least it wasn't them rubbernecking us losing to Ronaldo or something. Then I would have had to look up ancient swearwords and go on a rampage.

It's not like any of us get paid to post here.

[Deanjam]

It's not like any of us get paid to post here.

12 quid an hour mate.

[monkfromhavana]

Lee Dixon, a man who shagged his brother's wife and Kung Fu Wrighty.

I'm not missing Slaven, not at all.

[Glebe]

A mystifying difference between these reports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXXRHpVed3M

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Really got the horn for a nil all here. No goals in extra time. ITV schedule gets messed up. Montage guy gets yelled at to hurry up and find a song. General stress levels are through the roof. Lost ad revenue piles up.
Ronaldo doesn't get to take his penalty and rip his shirt off as the Pols are already through after 3 kicks.

Now that would be some night.

[BlodwynPig]

Wright getting it so wrong. Giggs the new mr. Cliche (hiding his ineptitude at this level) and ITV doing an England on Wales.

[imitationleather]

Lee Dixon, a man who shagged his brother's wife and Kung Fu Wrighty.

I'm not missing Slaven, not at all.

I'm not allowed to turn over until kick off. :(

I don't even really want to watch the game as it's quite obvious this will be another disappointing night for all that is righteous and good. If it was a special four hour Channel 4 News that'd suit me fine.

[BlodwynPig]

Giggs to say Ronaldo is world class...after the ads

[BlodwynPig]

How is chris moyles thinner than vermin Kay?