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?

That's a desperately poor 'point' if so.

Is a former England player like Wayne Rooney not to say 'we' for fear of offending Scots, Irish or Welsh viewers? Though in real life, none of the Scots, Welsh or Irish people I know would be bothered by this.

I swear people here are just desperately looking to be offended.

Oh FGS. Your gripe is that some commentators say 'we' instead of England and you're upset about that? Is that right?

No one has suggested they should, the debate is about " anyone but England" support.

If one of my kids came in saying " anyone but Ireland" I would kick their arse.

It's just bigotry dressed up as banter, which is what bigots do.

Last sentence sums it up.

Is Rooney meant to temper every line of every conversation with a caveat, given he is an English born ex England player?

I mean, if England were playing Scotland, Wales or NI the poster might have a point.

But in real life is anyone actually being offended by the fact that a former England player refers to England in the first person in a match against Norway or Argentina? I highly doubt it. And if they are, well, offence is taken not given.

I read that post a couple of times because I find it hard to believe that someone could genuinely be so bothered about something so slight. There's barrel scraping going on now to be upset.

This stuff isn’t worth engaging with. It’s divisive and toxic. Stop feeding the trolls.

Patrick Viera referred to France as “We” last night. You know, because he is French and it was a France game. It didn’t occur to me to erupt with fury because he was on ITV.

But then, some people get really hung up on pronouns these days!

That's terrible.

I'm sure Spanish viewers were mightily offended. Or maybe not.

Scotland are the only team in the World Cup to be knocked out 5 times.

Oh ffs-bore off.

Wayne Rooney, Gary Neville etc say ‘we’ because you know, they’re English!

Roy Keane, Duncan Ferguson - I’m sure will refer to England as such.

I’m not upset by it. I’m English.
I’m saying that people from other UK nations get upset by the English-centric media, including the way competitions like this are handled/covered.

Likewise, the interchanging of the words England/Britain/UK. It happens all the time.

I'm really not bothered who gets upset by a triviality. You sympathise with them .I think it's ridiculous.

No, you specifically said that TV presenters, some of them former England players, should not use the 1st person to refer to England.

Sounds like you were offended by it. Or taking preemptive offence on others' behalf.

As for 'English centric', given that England are playing a World Cup semi-final tonight against the defending champions, and the only other Home Nation that qualified went out at the group stage, who exactly do you think media in Britain should be focussing on?

What do you mean? Every team gets knocked out every tournament apart from the winners.

You resemble the typical ignorant English person commenting on this issue. You compare parts of your country, to an entire country.

You are aware that Scotland isn't equivalent to Yorkshire right? Scotland is every bit as equal to England. Population sizes don't determine significance. Otherwise there are megacities in China which are more of a "country" than England and the UK. It's this ignorance that's endemic and driving people towards independence. When ignorant people demote our significance, there's no option but to leave.

It's an issue only people in England seem to have. The rest of the union know it's four nations. English people see the UK as one, and ignore the fact that there are three nations on this island. You think Edinburgh's in your country.

"Scottish people aren’t any more different to Londoners than people in Cornwall or Hereford or Northumberland." English people aren't any more different to people in Paris or Berlin or Warsaw. So they should be governed from Brussels.

As for funding. Independence will sort that. Whatever extra money you believe we receive, we'll stop receiving. We don't want it. We don't want your money. We want to keep 100% of ours instead of sending it down to England and only getting 60% back. The rest used to fund crap like the HS2 link etc, which doesn't benefit Scotland.

Likewise, we wouldn't want our sports on your news. We don't want your sports on ours. The solution? London currently reserves the right for Scotland and Wales controlling their own broadcasting rights (how else are they going to brainwash us with pro-union messaging?). So the solution is returning those powers to Scotland, or better yet, independence.

I mean every team Scotland rooted for, simply because they were playing England.

Panama, Norway, Croatia, France, and Scotland themselves.

Rabid chippy Indy supporter claims to speak for all of Scotland. Sigh!

I live in Scotland. Have done my whole life. I don’t know anyone who wants Indy. The majority of votes in the last election went to unionist parties. Everyone is just so endlessly sick of the SNP running Scotland into the ground. Scotland could be successful with the funding it currently gets but it’s not. What would it be like with an instant 15% budget cut, before starting on the hard border with the country that takes the majority of its exports.

If the Scottish government really wanted Indy it would show how much more successful Scotland is than rUK instead we have a failing NHS, failing schools, failing transport, soaring drugs and the SNP handing all the money out to fix these things on endless unaffordable benefits increases and public sector pay rises.

Speak for yourself. I certainly did not root for Panama or Croatia. What a bizarre idea. So far as France, I honestly didn't mind who won. It was a brilliant game and fun to watch.

Norway, it was a shame Norway met England at that stage and it would have been interesting to see Norway progress but beyond that I wasn't rooting for Norway.

And frankly, Scotland played so badly I'm not sure I rooted for them.

Are you really so proud of showing off your little Scotlander, narrow mind?

So you think Scots should have rooted for England?

Funny how we’ve had an SNP Government for almost 20 years. Not everyone who voted for “Unionist” parties is a “Unionist”. There are many Tory, Labour and Lib Dem voters who would vote yes in a referendum.

Im always amazed at people like you who don’t see that the whole of the UK is a basket case yet want to remain part of a union up to its eyes in debt.

Why not? What a weird question. England is a constituent part of my country.

There are many Tory, Labour and Lib Dem voters who would vote yes in a referendum.

Oh ha ha. There really isn't.

That would make great sense and be a great use of resources when the world is a dangerous place. Brexit was bad enough - we do not need any more fragmentation.

The central issue is that Westminster is despised. Being in England and the biggest spoke in the wheel to Celtic self-determination we regard English politicians in a negative light. That reflects elsewhere 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️