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Subscribe to RSS FeedWhy we all hate the English
36-0 losers... didn'tcha just love it?!
How refreshingly honest of John O'Neill to come out and say it! I mean, it's hardly a secret is it? Tell me you haven't heard an Aussie utter the words 'I hate the English' before...
It sounds a bit strong, but it isn't really. The word 'hate' is not what it used to be, certainly not in sport bar a certain section of soccer fans. It isn't incitement to riot or wage war to 'hate' the other team, it is now just a word that means a measure of sporting antipathy.
Like lots of words in sporting context, 'hate' - a word that, if used properly, can make its target recoil in terror and/or disgust - has become a mere expression of rivalry, a common starting point for low-level banter, and an over-used cliché in a society too prone to hyperbole, particularly in sport, to reserve words of England's rich language for their proper uses.
So his use of the word 'hate' was a bit... some would say 'hateful', but I'll go with any of the following: insensitive, silly, exaggerated, hyperbolic, thoughtless, reckless, irresponsible, fatuous, injudicious, irrational, true.
True?
True. Perhaps it is insensitive, silly, exaggerated, hyper- (you get the picture) of me as well. When in Rome etc., but as a non-Englishman - a Welshman to be precise - there is little I do more than hate the English - in a purely sporting meaning of the word 'hate' of course.
It's not hard though. As O'Neill said: "We all hate the English", and it really is true. Ask most people who they want to win, and they will name their own team. Ask them who else they want to win, and the answer invariably comes: 'whoever's playing England' - unless you have the misfortune/fortune (delete as applicable) to be talking to an Englishman of course...
A lot of English don't appreciate this viewpoint. They frequently protest when I claim Welsh allegiance as a reason to support France when England are on their way to Paris. They moan that I should support the British team, that we are a United Kingdom, and that they'd support us over the garlic-sucking, goose-stuffing, frog-leg munchers anyway...
A tiny insight there into why the French might not like the English? But in case you are English, and really are confused as to why we all hate you, here's a few pointers...
France: Forget Trafalgar or the Thirty Years' War, just look at some of the phrases in the English language still in use today as evidence. A passionate kiss is known as a French kiss, because the English considered the exchange of saliva so revolting. In fact, the word 'French' was used for an awful lot of practices the English found revolting. How kind. Obviously, those few English who now realise that French kissing is rather nice realise the last laugh is on them...
Australia: Aside from having the temerity to win the Rugby World Cup on Australian soil, a natural antagoniser, the English have the cheek to actually send their unwanted prisoners over there to start a population. Jokes about a nation of convicts were probably funny around that time, but it is still a favourite English jibe. And they claim Australian culture is slow to evolve...
Wales: Phil Bennett, 1975: "Look what these bastards have done to Wales. They've taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our houses and they only live in them for a fortnight every 12 months. What have they given us? Absolutely nothing. We've been exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English - and that's who you are playing this afternoon." Enough said? Interestingly, the reason the Welsh took up the game in the first place was so teams of Welsh miners could spent eighty minutes a week duffing up their English mine managers who were largely responsible for the acts in Bennett's tirade. Told the managers it would be good for team-building among the boys, see. And they fell for it...
Scotland: All the Scots want is independence. All they have ever wanted is independence. All the English have ever wanted is to not give it to them. The Romans had it right - they just built a wall between the two territories: a nice peaceful symbol that dissuaded antagonism. Why the English subsequently continued to pursue religious, financial and territorial hegemony north of the border down the years is a mystery. Still, given that we have a Scottish Parliament, Scotland's own money, and Scottish manufacturers of all England's favourite whiskeys that current English fans will be using to drown their sorrows, it appears that the English failed.
Ireland: Sir Clive Woodward did his best to try and heal the Anglo-Irish rift stemming from 1920 by claiming that He was trying to protect Ireland's national treasure from international attack in 2005, but it hasn't really worked. You just can't rush in, divide a nation of people into two and then leave the two halves to fight each other, without expecting them one day to patch up their differences and return for nemesis duty.
South Africa: 'Oh, those Saffers are such brutes, they are loud, rude, obnoxious, and they are so messy' runs the English mantra. Hmmmm. Ever seen a bunch of English on tour in Torremolinos or Crete? And one suspects the South Africans have the last laugh... they get to go home to one of the most beautiful countries in the world where having fun is tolerated, even keenly encouraged, and can be achieved at volume and with gusto and without requiring an ASBO to curb it.
New Zealand: Seven words: Sir Clive Woodward, Tana Umaga, Spear Tackle. Can we suggest it is mildly impolite to go somewhere on tour, not talk to the locals, and then attempt to discredit a national hero? Maybe wrong though... maybe Graham Henry - or whoever else it may be - will come over to England next November and accuse Jonny Wilkinson of making the game boring by kicking all the time.
Your nation not mentioned here? You got a beef with the English? Please do drop us a line!
By Richard Anderson
