To say the anti-football lot need to calm down a little?

Ashes cricket when the matches are in Australia. Rugby World Cup when matches are in the summer hemisphere. Ryder Cup.

There's loads of sporting events that are 'national' in the same way. But we don't do it for any of those.

Typical anti football reaction! I wonder if Prince George was allowed to watch, he seems a keen football fan…

I enjoyed the game (already up anyway) but saying that people who don't enjoy football are just trying to be superior or unique is ridiculous. No, plenty of people really don't like football. Not everyone likes the same thing.

Exactly. A lot of parents to young children are sleep deprived for weeks, months, even years!

People have late nights because they’re at events all year round. Others have insomnia. There are loads of reasons why people won’t have had much sleep for a night, or longer.

They’re still all out on the roads.

Some people are ridiculous.

In one sentence, you've just undone all your hard work in trying to rationalise your loathing for England football.

You’ve no idea how many people are sleep deprived on any given day, those with young children etc.

Im not sure it’s something to overly concern yourself with.

Do you worry on New Years Day?

Can if you want, but people don’t have passion, their choice I suppose?

If the cap fits...

Which other events would you like to see pubs opening for? I can only really think of other sporting ones, any artistic ones aren't going to pull in the numbers for an individual show/series of shows to make it economical

@LuckyHazelFox

Hoping your country get knocked out of a tournament is not a healthy attitude. Sorry but anybody holding those views really should be nowhere near teaching/coaching/aspirational roles. Nobody has to like the game or the tournament, of course not, but the dramatics about the world cup are ridiculous.

I don't hope my country gets knocked out of the tournament, I actively want them to win, but I can understand people who do. It's so all-encompassing that I can understand wanting a break from the endless discussion and preoccupation about it.

I don't think its 'unhealthy' to know your own mind, to know what you do and don't like and to want a bit of headspace for the things you care about without being constantly corralled into having to follow something you don't. I actually think this is a far healthier mindset than just having to go along with supporting England because everyone else around you is doing it.

Some people don't feel any particular affinity with being English, it's irrelevant to their sense of self and that's OK. Some people don't particularly care about football and that's also OK. Why do you want everyone to be like you?

First post nails it, perfect opportunity to virtue signal how middle class and superior they are
yesterday also gave the gift of lording it over inferior chav parents who cannot parent because they let their children stay up and watch the game

Unless there is some sort of health issue or you’re a very young child, people can cope with one night of less sleep. It’s one night.

People like something to be dramatic and angry over.

Some folk sneer, I didn't.

What I don't understand - and I don't think it's sneering - is why so much special consideration is given to this over everything else? If it was the World Cup final which we've not reached since Noah was a boy, I could probably understand it. But this was last 16 and pub licensing hours were especially changed just for this; some schools and workplaces have started later. That's the bit that a lot of us struggle with, I think, that those special treatments aren't allowed for other events that other people can be equally passionate about.

Hoping your country get knocked out of a tournament is not a healthy attitude. Sorry but anybody holding those views really should be nowhere near teaching/coaching/aspirational roles. Nobody has to like the game or the tournament, of course not, but the dramatics about the world cup are ridiculous.

We are retired so obviously easy for us but if still working we would have stayed up and gone to work. No one would die from a mistake in our work settings though.

It is tribalism but aren’t many organisations? Have you met WI members?

It was a match that will always be remembered regardless of how much further England go forward. DH as a child was at the match where the Scottish fans invaded the pitch in the 70’s and pulled the goalposts down. It is a known match if you are really in to football.

There are some issues with violence around football so that is a valid point.

i love cricket and football, very different vibe at matches but some on MN don’t like football because they deem it low brow, common and a bit too working class.

I was just reducing it to the basics like others have done with the football

In all honestly, if you enjoy theatre, music, whatever, go enjoy it. Praise it publicly, talk about what your passion is. Take joy and delight from it.

I just don't understand why some people want to sneer

Why is it a terrible attitude?

I was thrilled England got through and would have enjoyed watching the game but can you not understand that some people just want to go back to normality and to not have it dominate every waking thought and every conversation?

I'm English and I'm pleased that the England team are (for now) doing well, but why is it mandatory that you have to be completely all out for the England team just because of the accident of where you're born? I am English, I'm neither overwhelmingly proud nor ashamed of being English, it's just a circumstance of my life. Of course if the team does well it's a positive and I will cheer them on but if they lose I won't give it much further thought. I don't feel any special affinity with these footballers because they happen to have been born on the same patch of soil as me: why should I? I've never met them. They owe me nothing and vice versa.

This is the sort of thing which pisses people off about it. We end up feeling really hemmed in by other people's nationalism and a sense of duty and responsibility which we just don't share. We're not fighting a war, just having a game. An important game but still a game.

I don't want to have to give it that much headspace, it just isn't as important to me as it is to you. Can't some of you just let us have this?

Yet more people in this country are prepared to make the effort to get off their behinds to support a bunch of people on a stage saying words than make the same effort to go and watch people kicking a ball around on a field (if you want to bring both of them down to basics; I hadn't diminished the talent of players but you do you).

That may be boring to you. Football may be boring to someone else. Yet football is the one thing that gets special allowances.

I can't relate to this thinking so best not to say anymore.

As I pointed out on another tiresome thread about the same subject, those of us in the southern hemisphere have been doing this forever, and somehow we manage to function - and without all the fuss.

I don't get patriotism.

I had no input into where I was born, it's pure chance.

What's to be proud about?

Live theatre? That's just a bunch of people on a stage saying words

If you're English, that's a terrible attitude.

I haven't seen any examples of any 'anti footballers' not being calm? Have you?

I just cant get excited about millionaires kicking a ball around, doesn't mean I parade the streets with anger.

Your post about teachers in very unkind (no I'm not one).

Because we don’t do this for other world cups, like rugby, cricket or the ladies world cups? It’s annoying