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.