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?

Of course there is hatred. Might be from a minority of Scots or Welsh or Irish but there is. You might pretend it is all banter but it isn't always. I had a Welsh crazy telly me she hopes all English kids get killed. Weird. Anyway I am in a good mood. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

So did Shetland once but it now votes SNP!

Do you live in Scotland?

Sturgeon and the wider SNP have done everything they can to pretend Scotland is different - better! - than rUK it’s just ludicrous. Just a few small examples:

Having a Scottish income tax band that does nothing but add complexity and a max of 20p a week into the pockets of poorer taxpayers in order to say the majority of taxpayers are better off in Scotland. 20p!!!!

The great expense in plugging Gaelic across Scotland despite it never having been spoken in the central belt. It’s like plugging Cornish in London. Just embarrassing. And expensive.

Deciding not to use NHS Englands app, but to build another one from scratch at great expense because the English one wasn’t Scottishy enough.

Performatively boasting about no junior doctors strikes here as we pay junior doctors better, while bending to their every pay demand and ensuring no money is left for actual improvements in health services.

Boasting about being more ‘inclusive’ in schooling in Scotland, by banning permanent exclusion resulting in soaring violence and declining standards.

Helping out local shipyards by letting them build Scottish ferries - at 10 x the expense of overseas operators and taking 10 x as long. Oh but they’re Scottish (shite) ferries.

I could go on. There are so many ways that the SNP have artificially sought to show Scotland as ‘better’ than England and they’ve all failed at vast expense. All with a view to winning Indy away from the ‘nasty’ English. The Scots have exactly the same social attitude as the rest of the UK. No better, no worse.

You don’t live in Scotland if you think there’s no hatred of the English here!

I wouldn’t support Scotland or wales in fairness. I don’t dislike them but in terms of sports I just don’t care for them as a team. But Scottish/Welsh people I have obviously no issue with. It’s just sports related

I am half English and half from another country so I support both but there isn’t any country where I dislike the people

Making Independence about the English says a lot about you.

I do live in Scotland.

It's jealousy and lack of intelligence

Jealousy about what?

I said Maaaaaaaaaybe

It says a lot about the SNP that their aspiration seems to relate purely to whether the stats show they are better or worse than England (see the income tax) rather than actually what’s best for the nation.

The trouble is, even if you take sports out of the equation completely, the Scottish still hate the English. Spoken from personal experience of living there.

My Scottish friend’s daughter went to uni in England and my friend said to me one day ‘Nothing against you, but they English are bloody filthy’. She was obviously totally blind to the state of the town she lived in!

Isn’t that like saying “I hate black people, but I’m not racist”.

@Batsratscatsgnatsyes: London is absolutely full of selfish dickheads, particularly the drivers, which I know from doing a hideous school run every day. Don’t know if you’re a Londoner, but Londoners are incapable of hearing any criticism of either themselves or their city.

Doesn’t make my observation any less correct.

Is it? I think it's different because "The English" refers to an institution/ historical source of misuse of power?

It's possible to dislike a regime and not it's citizens. That's very different from your example.

@Arlanymorwe’re a rugby house and were despairing at the idiotic scheduling of the Nations Championship in the middle of the football World Cup. Surely they’d have got much more coverage and attention if they’d planned it for a bit later in the summer? (And also not clashing with Wimbledon and the cricket)

Get out of the wrong side of the bed? You sound bitter.

My family is from Northern Ireland. I was born in England.

what would the Irish be jealous of the English for?

I don’t hate the English on an individual level at all - I am one - but I can see and understand why some people dislike Englishness and the English centric view of sport.

I have to say that characterising hundreds of years of oppression and things such as the Great Hunger as “just about sport” is surprising to me @Batsratscatsgnats

Hm but Edward I invaded and conquered Wales, Scotland were never conquered but basically bribed/forced into unification. I think it’s understandable to hate the English as a Welsh or Scottish person…

That aside, we’re arsehole tourists so have a terrible reputation.

I'm Scottish. I'm currently down in England visiting English friends.

I don't support England at football because I'm not English. I don't support France or Ireland or Cape Verde either, even though I have connections with all those countries too.

To be honest though, even if I was supporting England, the way some English fans have reacted to the way the Tartan Army was received in America would make me change my mind.

I am Australian so that’s who I support. But DH is English so I support them unless they’re playing against Australia. And he’s the same with Australia. In the WC I am all in for England now and definitely ‘anyone but the USA’ especially after their latest cheating.

Obviously I don’t hate the English haha my kids are half English and I have lots of friends who are English. I will say the English attitude in certain sports (cough cricket) is unbearable and DS18 and I do quietly enjoy their humiliations. But English cricket fans hate Australia so all’s fair. But I really want England to win the WC and I’ll celebrate wildly with DH if they do.

I think events like the WC bring out passions but I don’t see the anti English sentiment that others do. Also you should try being Australian on mumsnet - that’s not every 4 years it’s every day!

I don't think my mum was entitled to a job. But calling someone a Sassenach is ignorant, especially in an actual letter of rejection.

Lots of places can also be hyper local. It's not just if you are from another country l, it's an issue if you are from another town/island. Which is on the one hand understandable but in the long run kills those places because that sort of small town mindedness is unappealing to the young and drives local youths away as well

Really, how? Is this something real or something online? Because there are loads of YouTube shorts/tiktoks of dumb people saying dumb stuff I ignore because I don't think it's representative.

Think it's more if Scotland is doing well the sports person is British but if they are doing bad/get knocked out they are Scottish.

I’m have English parents but spent my whole life in Scotland and so I see it from both sides.

I don’t condone anti-English rhetoric, it is embarrassing. On the other hand a bit of me understands where it comes from.

It’s a bit similar to how British people often feel towards Americans. We don’t hate them as individuals but we can perceive them as a group to be rather irritating, full of themselves, very centred on the US and not really understanding or interested in other cultures. We don’t agree with some of the things they get up to. But we consume their culture and find them endlessly fascinating so it’s love-hate. This is what happens with a dominant culture and this is how it is with England and the smaller nations. Add in the political factors and it’s complex. But we are friends and neighbours and should support each other in my view.