Well, I’ll give you tennis maybe - we do appear to be fairly pedestrian there, although its not a sport I know much about. I see we are not in the top 20 of the Davis cup rankings.
The other three sports, however, are a different story - do you really think that England is ‘frigging useless’ at football, cricket and rugby union? Sorry mate - you sound like the stereotypical arrogant Englishman who believes we have a divine right to success given our history in all three sports. I can maybe see your point with respect to football - Given that it dwarfs all other sports in the UK, and there is a bottomless well of money pumped into it by all and sundry, then you would want to see more success and a consistently better team.
Remember though, that international football sucks. Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan etc etc would abuse any international team. England without doubt has some of the best football teams in the world playing in the EPL. So you have this great event in the football world cup that is featuring a pre-ponderance of really mediocre football matches. I don’t think this inversion of quality wrt international / domestic has taken place in cricket or rugby, but I don’t follow those sports as closely.
When you say ‘we’, you are of course talking about England. We have this balkanisation of sporting nationalities in the UK that doesn’t help the international teams. I’m well aware of the argument that no one from Scotland, NI or Wales would get in the English football team, which is probably true at the moment but has not always been so. Its certainly an unusual situation that is not mirrored anywhere else that I can think of.
I think there is a debate at the heart of your OP on the declining sporting prowess of the UK, which can be seen starkly in track and field, athletics events. I don’t really see it in football, cricket or rugby.
England are at present ranked the number 2 test playing nation in the world, behind only Australia. If of course you are talking about pyjama cricket, well, really who gives a damn what happens in that bastardized version of the beautiful game?
It’s because here in Britain, sport occupies its rightful place as a minor diversion from the main business of the day. Whereas in places like Australia and South Africa, there’s fuck-all else to do except lounge about in the sun and get very good at cricket and swimming and what have you.
Wow, if you think one dayers are a bastardized version of the beautiful game you must be going batshit over the “officially sanctioned” 20/20 world cup!
Not that I disagree with you mind, I personally am very happy to sit down and watch 5 days of cricket, and while I prefer watching a test match to the other forms of cricket, I still enjoy watching one-dayers and 20/20’s.
I see it this way, a test match is like a 5 course meal at a fancy restaurant, while one dayers are like a fast food stop, and 20/20 like a chocolate bar or bag of chips. They’re all food, and they’re all quite nice in the appropiate time and place.
[Yes I like a good feed - how did you guess? ]
One thing I’ve noticed about Australian sportspeople is that they seem to dedicate an enormous amount of time and energy to improving their abilities at the game, whatever the sport may be.
What I have observed of New Zealanders, though, is that they do not. And that’s why Aus usually beats NZ when they go head to head.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK sportspeople are similarly less dedicated.
This is not to say they are not dedicated at all, just not as much as their opponents.
I would be going batshit over it if I paid any attention to it. I can see how it might be fun for some, but it doesn’t hold much of an appeal to me at all. I will admit to following real one-dayers, but they kind of started to grate on me when they added floodlights and put the players in those ridiculous costumes.
For me, nothing comes close to the 5 Day game. Anything else is like methodone for a heroin addict. It may take the edge off the craving, but it just leaves you sad and longing for the true bliss.
Don’t know what you were watching during our last three Test series against them, then, 'cos I had the possibly foolish impression that we beat the shit out of them ten matches out of twelve. :rolleyes:
Twenty years ago, yes, I’ll give you that, but the balance of power started shifting when you were still my age, and it’s shifted ever since.
Man, in the US, we’re losing basketball and baseball on an international level.
If anyone, anywhere, ever beats us at (American) football, however, I’m moving there; I don’t want to live in a country that isn’t the greatest football superpower in the world.
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