Sunday 9 October 2011

England's football and rugby teams leave me indifferent

One of the great things about being a sports fan is the range of emotions that watching sport can bring.

There's the emotional highs and lows of following your favourite team, the real life drama that success and failure brings, as well as the thrill of watching great skills and performances from competitors.




An idiot abroad

Unfortunately after watching England's football and rugby teams this weekend, I was left with none of these feelings - only total indifference.

A 2-2 draw away to that footballing giant known as Montenegro, and another ridiculous sending off from Wayne Rooney.

I've given up on England challenging the world's best at football. For 30 minutes on Friday we gave the impression of being a serious football nation, before the inevitable mental collapse took place; perfectly represented by Rooney. There was no need to get upset, we've experienced this 'groundhog' day so many times.

Anyway, football was only the warm up act to the main event this weekend which of course was England's World Cup Quarter final against the old enemy France.

I've come to expect a lot more from England's rugby team. They might play a brand of rugby that for most of the time is stodgy, slow and uninspiring, but they grind out results. We occasionally even win stuff stuff like 6 Nations and World Cups.

Yesterday though was a complete disaster. 16-0 down at half time the game was over. The French were having a collective breakdown only a week ago, yet England provided them with the perfect therapy to get their World Cup campaign up and running again.

I couldn't even get upset at the end. The first half performance was so bad we didn't deserve to go through, despite a second half comeback.

The entire campaign seemed a waste of time, with poor performances and various off the field controversies dogging the England team. Sounds familiar to another England team doesn't it?

Die hard football and rugby fans have little time for each other's games but we're all united in seeing performances of mediocrity, under achievement and off the field bad behaviour ruining our teams chances.

When did our football and rugby teams become so similiar? Why do they always shoot themselves in the foot?

At least there's always the cricket.

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