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?

🙄

You're delusional if you think anyone alive today in England needs to be apologising for that.

Do you work with any German or Japanese colleagues? I assume you think it's perfectly acceptable to start ranting at them about the historic atrocities of WW2 during Zoom meetings?

We supported Scotland because my kids and DH are Scottish. Also I’ve lived here all my adult life. A lot of the anti English sentiment I’ve come across while living here is either: English people are rude/ think they’re better than us or English football fans are dicks (which I do think is wild given how town gets after an old firm game). It’s really really common for me to get “you’re alright for an English person/ not like other English people/ but your last name is Scottish? I knew you had some Scottish in you/ Yes but you’re a northerner so it’s different.” There are people who have legitimate concerns with Westminster and are pro independence, but in my experience that’s a bit of a different thing.

I’ve always found it a bit odd tbh because I’ve never actually met anyone in England who feels strongly about Scottish people outside of the occasional “they’re hard to understand/ they sound funny/ I went to Glasgow in 1980something and it was a dump!/ ooo isn’t Glasgow a scary place to live?” But that’s quite rare. General silliness and stereotypes tho init.

Brazilians are mainly the descendants of Colonisers and migrants so their feelings towards Portugal will undoubtedly be different. But yes, those from French and Portuguese colonies in Africa absolutely have similar levels of vitriol. I still recall I believe it was the Portuguese / Angola match in South Africa World Cup and how fiercely the Portuguese team were booed by Angolans.

Germans definitely beat themselves up over parts of the empire (their empire in Europe under Hitler) but ignore the German atrocities in Namibia because they aren’t white so less important. But in fairness I don’t think any country really beats itself up about Empire, Britain included. Except Germany with Nazism most countries pretend it did not happen or claimed it was benign.

"Classist suggestion" WTAF ??? So you think only posh folk go to uni?

I in fact suggested that the definition of "knuckle-dragger" precludes by definition, most people intelligent enough to be university educated.

As for bigotry, how is choosing a team to support in any given football match, where one's own country is not playing bigotry? The only bigotry I'm hearing is not coming from me.

Yeah I was just correcting that person referring to British history as English history.

No. Hence why I said your suggestion was classist.

You can be university educated and a knuckle dragging bigot. The two are not mutually exclusive.

You’re doubling down again on the same classisim.

The English have a very bad name in other countries because many act like twats on holiday.

It’s unfortunate because I’m English and don’t act like that but when enough people act like it, then some people are going to get a coloured view.

There is obviously also a lot of historical context about how the English treated people too.

England sports fans are notorious for being idiots, again it’s not everyone but they’re usually the loudest and most aggressive so it makes it seem like we’re all like that when we’re not.

Ugh! You can't have it both ways! Either we're all British together and should support each other, or England is more important and the rest of us should just watch local channels if we want to see and hear things that involve us! (That is what we do, by the way, and that's why we don't care how England does in the football.)

My family are Scots. I do supprt England in the majority of things but not football. This is based on my experiences around fans etc and their attitudes and behaviours.

Might be pathetic to some but I think the hatred towards Germany by English fans is even more pathetic 🤷

I’m from Ireland, most English related football games we see English hooliganism, loudness, brashness, and a lot of ‘we’re better than you’ as opposed to ‘we’re going to win’.

This is just from speaking to people (in particular in the run up to this game where the sentiment unfortunately was as long as the US or the UK don’t win as we’ll never hear the end of it)

Don't make the effort on my behalf...

And the English football team is doing nothing "for Britain". Just listen to the commentary. Definitely just for Engerlaaand.

Some sourness this morning.

I suggest you read about the Scottish clearances and the Irish famine for a start. Very much English colonialism.

Sorry my reply is to Happyhappyzoozoo
The Highland clearances involved Scottish landowners removing tenants. They have damn all to with English "colonialism"

However Scottish immigrants had no qualms about killing the indigenous North American population

Liverpool gets it. We were the black sheep of the Country. People I'd meet from down south just didn't get that were they lived had jobs and we didn't was because we were stripped of everything. As for Churchill, he turned the gun boats on Liverpool because the men just wanted a decent wage. It's really disappointing how the 'fly the flag' lot has dragged us down. If it wasn't for Scotland we wouldn't have had a Liverpool football team.
A film I'd recommend is, The Nightingale 2018, set in Van Diemen's land.
Is there hatred from the DR Congo towards Belgium?

My Welsh family and Welsh friends are happy for England to do well but it gets more unbearable to closer to the final it gets because it's all "us" and "we" all over the TV and radio, the news and the papers.

When/if Wales, Scotland or NI are doing well in a sport or anything else it's very "our friends in Wales..." coded. Still positive but it's dialled down.

I go to conferences and events through work nationally and it's England centric because that's the majority. e.g. I've been at a conference with a panel discussing education and the arts. Lots of curriculum bashing in the Q&A and I said to the woman sat next to me "we have a completely different curriculum in Wales, this isn't our experience at all" and she said "same! I'm from the Isle of Man".

Our shops still stock all the England flag stuff - no one's buying that unless they're an English person living in Wales.

I'm not a football fan but I've watched World Cups and Euros through the years because it's hard not to. I remember Gazza crying, Southgate's missed penalty, I know all the words to Three Lions - because it's all part of a UK national cultural consciousness and I watch TV, listen to the BBC radio stations, read newspapers.

I do see and hear anti-English sentiment around rugby which comes from a place of competitiveness and a hatred of the smugness of the English press. In my family (living in Wales, we are Welsh), we've been watching the matches and have favoured England in their games so far, I wish the players well and they're great ambassadors for their country. It's just not my country.

@PhaedraTwo I'm part Lakota Sioux, tbf, the first nation people didn't live in peace, getting along. Unfortunately it's human nature to care more about your immediate family than those you are taking from, especially when nothing has ever been given to you.

I'm Scottish and I'm embarrassed by the posters who have no knowledge of Scotland's involvement in the Empire and the slave trade.

Champagne still chilling for when they do finally crash out.

The Uk?

No, no more than I would think that’s ok with English colleagues either FFS
Thanks for helping prove my points though 🤫

Cheers 😅

Of course there is.

there were even memes that Belgian goalkeeper shoulf only be allowed to play using one hand only

It was more to do with a South American VAR team rather than the fans' shenanigans, that's expected everywhere. FIFA need to look at the breakdown of the officials for every match.

It’s the assumption that all of the English people are scum, apart from the English people that they’ve actually met who surprisingly seem to be quite nice!