AIBU to wonder if anti-English feeling is mostly about sport

[Batsratscatsgnats]

If you support anyone but England in football or other sports do you dislike English people generally or is it just in sports?

She means the Establishment and the jingoism that usually accompanies it

That's a long standing (friendly) rivalry, we love each other really 😅

Loving the people on here not understanding that people the world over don’t like English people. Shows a lack of knowledge and understanding of English history.

*British.

I agree. There's an English guy saying Well done England on our local community page and the abuse he's getting is appalling

If you invade countries, strip the people of their rights, land, language, culture and even sports then act like none of that matters because it’s all in the past then there is going to be major resentment. Then throw in that the English don’t know their own history so say stupid things about their past and how they actually treated others = even more resentment!
Take Churchill for example - Great War leader? Yes. But also racist, white suprematist who had a large part to play in the Bengal famine, who insulted Gandhi as ‘half naked’ fakir ? Also yes.

Perfect summary!

Gandhi was also a massive racist too. So many of our “heroes” have their dark sides. (Although that I said I don’t venerate the Churchill the way many Brits do.)

You should head down to the Old Firm derby. No racism, xenophobia or bigotry on display there.

Americans are a hell of a lot more cocky than we are. Shame I actually like NZ more than Australia.

1. My kids didn’t do any of that shit
2. Read up on the Scottish influence on the slave trade please.
3. Do you hate Germans too? Blame their descendants for WW2?

Not to excuse him but take him in the context of when he lived.

As I said, I agree it's ridiculous to hate people now who had nothing to do with historical events.

I also noted the lack of maturity amongst a lot of the adult population who are unable to have broad view on things. Lots of people are unable to hold opinions differently to others. They don't have the maturity or communication skills to discuss topics or different opinions without resorting to immature aggression or sarcasm. Mumsnet shows examples of this every day.

A lot of people who lived in his time were not racist white supremacists. We should not forget that context either.

I find Americans to be rather pleasant and charming actually. Of course some are cocky but they aren't all like that. At least they aren't whingers!

I’m not sure what people want English sports teams to do. Enter the room like Uriah Heap, wringing their hands and telling everyone how shit they are?? If you’re a sports team, you talk yourself up a bit - that’s not arrogance, it’s self-belief. As for England fans - a very large proportion are very realistic about their chances, and a further proportion are outright negative.

Seeing loads of great interactions between the fans of the game. I imagine many of those on this thread would rather carry on thinking England are thugs.

I’ve travelled extensively all over the world, and lived in different countries, and TBH have never encountered any animosity on the grounds of being a Brit.

Other countries (e.g. France, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, The Netherlands) had empires and didn’t AFAIK behave any better than we did - do those countries’ nationals still beat themselves up about what happened before they were born?

Plus of course Germany did its best to achieve a huge empire - do Germans still beat themselves up about what happened before so many of them were even born?

Neither are all English whingers.

Guess what, there is a lot of issues as described in your second paragraph. Do you know that most of Eastern Europe can be happily be cheering against Germany because of WWII?

there are own issues in Asia and there were plenty of TikToks jokingly not jokingly discussing who they should support in Japan vs Netherlands World Cup scenario because both Japanese and Dutch have atrocious colonial record there. China is also not very popular.

so England is not alone

Definitely. Google Belgium and Congo.

Also the reason why people outside Britain attribute this all to England alone - because for most outsiders Britain = England and they have no idea that Scottish / Welsh / Northern Irish pretend they are not party to colonialism and British Empire atrocities whatsoever

a lot of people continue to be confused why there are 4 teams from Britain in WC, and are very confused when Scots join in in anti-British sentiment - most countries don’t care and don’t follow that closely the internal British politics

Back in Oz a friend of mine actually had this at work. She was facing a lot of animosity and hostility from a new joiner to the point a senior manager intervened in the situation.

Turns out the guy, who was Polish hated my friend because she was German. The year was 2018. And he was hating a woman in her 20s for actions that occurred long before her birth.

(Also that PP you are talking to is Scottish hence the desperate desire to downplay the fact that what the English did to the Scottish the Scottish enthusiastically did to others as part of the British empire. A disproportionate number of plantations in Jamaica were Scottish owned (~ 1/3) and Scottish universities pushed racial pseudoscience but nothing to see here!)

Having lived in a number of different countries I’m afraid that ‘English’ is always used to mean British. They don’t know the difference. I’d correct them and say I’m British and have to explain the difference but most of the time when foreigners ‘hate the English’ they mean British. There’s a concept that Scotland might be a thing, but the people are lumped as the same as the English. And no one has heard of the Welsh at all!

And it helps Scottish and Welsh people to feed the myth that the British Empire was actually just the English empire.

Similarly, most England fans don't give a toss what anyone else thinks about our team. We are too busy concentrating on our next match. Come on England - somebody has to do it for Britain, I suppose.