It was cricket, not football. And the UK isn’t a uni-sport country. Football, rugby, cricket, all with large domestic leagues.
And it’s not to do with countries either. City names for the domestic stuff.
We just don’t go for the fancy names you use. Pirates and Vikings and Ninjas and Platypi and Ostriches and whatever else you call your teams. 
Sacriligiously, they’ve actually started doing that for short format county cricket (‘Sussex Sharks, Durham Dynamos’). I know, it just isn’t cricket.
But in the ‘India doesn’t automatically mean a sporting fixture to Americans’ debate, I don’t think it necessarily would for non sporty Brits either. But the reference to The Oval puts it in context - the Oval is a world famous cricket ground amongst cricket playing nations. So Americans might not know what the Oval is but can surely appreciate that the line gives ‘India’ context for Brits. We also play a LOT of international sport, so saying ‘we’re playing Spain/Australia/Poland on Saturday’ is very normal (and may mean football, rugby, cricket depending on the team).
One other thing to note… some international teams are strongly associated with particular sports (for us Brits and Colonials :D). So, if someone said ‘I saw Spain at Wembley’, everyone would know we’re talking about football as (a) Spain are the best football team in the world and don’t play rugby or cricket and (b) Wembley is a football stadium (arguably the most famous). With India, we only really play them at cricket at any meaningful level, so people will always assume we’re talking about cricket if we say ‘I saw India play last week’, even without the mention of the stadium. It gets a bit murkier with the likes of South Africa and Australia, as we have regular, hotly contested matches in both rugby and cricket, and at all times of the year.
And from that ramble you will also note that we are not a ‘uni-sport’ country either. in our three major team sports, we may give our teams place names more than nicknames, but each sport has a different style of name so are easily identifiable. Major league football games tend to feature town names (like Manchester), cricket tends to feature county names (like Surrey) and rugby team names are a mixed bag of nicknames and town names, but different ones from football teams (eg Gloucester is a big rugby team but not football team - I’m sure they have a football team, just not a famous one).
Ya know, it’s even more ironic because, like I said I’m not much of a sports fan, so whenever I hear someone ‘talking sports’ like: “Miami has an awesome defense this year…” I always respond with another John Cleese line, this time from The Meaning of Life: "Ah, that’s football, you can talk about the Bears Rams game!". The way he does it in that bad, exaggerated American accent and especially the way he over-emphasizes *Bears *and Rams, sums up my attitude that I really don’t care and, in fact, am mocking how much you seem to!
I’ll reply because we’re being polite about it. Fighting ignorance and all In general (although it is far more complex than a quick overview):
US English:
New York Yankees is a baseball team.
U2 is a band from Ireland.
UK English:
New York Yankees are a baseball team.
U2 are a band from Ireland.
But as an example of how US English fluctuates:
UK English also fluctuates with a few reserved things, like (IIRC) the political term “The Cabinet”, which is often described in the singular.
Didn’t see this. Thanks for answering. Now do I delete my reply …
I always feel weird about my boys, the Warwickshire Bears. OK, we have the old “Bear and Ragged Staff” thing going on, but there’s no bears native to the UK and the team doesn’t even play in Warwickshire.
<quick German lesson>
“Wir wollen ein Auto mieten”
</quick German lesson>
With proper names it seems like either usage is okay. I notice the difference the most when it’s with a common noun like “team”. In the U.S., we might say:
“The team is doing their best.”
But I’ve heard U.K. sportscasters say something like:
“The team are doing their best.”
To my American ears, the second sounds conspicuously foreign.
In German it’s usually singular… “Energie Cottbus gewann das Spiel”.
Note that in England it is common to refer to sports teams in the singluar in certain circumstances (usually when referring to the institution as a whole, rather than the group of players).
Example: “Ratcliffe today swiftly brushed aside suggestions that the club is in turmoil following the resignation of the long-serving Heslop and his No2 Richard Prokas just three months after guiding Penrith to the Northern League Division Two title”
I love how Somerset has just decided toignorethis trend.
And to be fair, Warwickshire DID play in Warwickshire, it’s the boundary commissioners fault! Mind you, ‘Birmingham Bears’ does have a ring about it… (Same goes for Middlesex, does Middlesex as a county even exist anymore?).
Shouldn’t that be ‘the team is doing its best’. At least be consistent!
I went past the Oval last night and noticed that it’s now The Kia Oval. Corporate sponsorship uber alles…
I noticed that when I checked the Wiki article but didn’t want to mention it, not knowing if it’s a sore spot over there to have a landmark stadium now be Korean owned.
“Bit of shrapnel from the war, KOREAN! KOREAN!”
To me, if you’re explicitly referring to the people in a team or band then plural fits. But when you’re more often than not referring to the semi-abstract entity that is a sports team or a rock band, well it is one thing, and singular makes more sense.
But it can so easily break down, like if the band’s name is specifically plural already (and contains the definite article ‘the’). Saying “U2 is coming to town!” or “U2 is breaking up” sounds right, but not “The Beatles is coming to town” or “The Beatles is breaking up”. Of course, even in America you could also say “U2 are breaking up”.
Ma’ puzzler hurts…
No, we’d say “U2 is breaking up.”
But we would say “You two are breaking up.”
Yep. I had the joys of growing up about two miles from the border (Kenilworth, just outside Coventry). I just find it amusing. But, clearly it couldn’t be Birmingham, instead the West Midlands (counties, not cities, in cricket). So what do you reckon? West Midlands Industrial Revolutionists?
Pretty sure Middlesex still exists, when I lived in Hounslow in the late 90s my address was classed as there with a Twickenham postcode.
I believe Middlesex only exists as a historical/traditional county now. It’s not a ceremonial/geographical county or an administrative county. It existed as a postal county until 1996, when postal counties were abolished.
Weird, because I didn’t move to Hounslow until late 1997.
WAS I DOING MY ADDRESS WRONG?!?!?!?!
Not wrong - it’s just optional now.
I find this all very confusing because postally I live in Kent (by literally a block) but politically I live in London.
phew
Yep it is all a bit weird. IS all this county boundary changing a normal thing? Do other countries do it?