Euro 2008 is a big turn off
A national survey has revealed that up to 2.5 million Brits are cheering on the Italians in the European 2008 Championships because of the glaring absence of a team from the Home Nations in the competition.
That means that 30 per cent of English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish fans have had to pack away their national flags and replica shirts in favour of donning the colours of an alternative or an adopted team for the summer.
Personally I am 100 per cent sure those statistics are wrong. Certainly the true supporters of the beautiful game will tell you that football fans, like the proverbial leopard, never change their spots.
I mean if you asked any Scotsman who he was supporting at the last World Cup you can guarantee he would say: "Whoever England are playing." Fans just don't switch allegiance to another team or nation either if they share borders - fact.
But the competition is now under way and with it the noteable point that "Britain Hasn't Got Talent" when it comes to a side to represent us in the biggest football tournament after the World Cup.
In fact the only team of Home Nations' stars who seem to have made it to the finals in Austria and Switzerland are the BBC's panel of football pundits where we are all catered for with England's own Alan Shearer being joined by, among others, Scotland's Alan Hansen and Northern Ireland's Villa manager, Martin O'Neill.
The survey claims Italy are the team we all most love to follow with the absence of England and there are a few of my female colleagues in the office who will give you 11 good reasons why.
But while there may be those who admire the Italians' grace and style on the ball or simply fancy their chances because they are the current World Cup holders, I really don't see fans waving Italian flags from the roof tops.
And while waving a flag of St George is, in this world of ridiculous political correctness, still considered at times to suggest you are guilty of jingoistic tendancies, personally I think it is rather sad that we as a nation cannot have something to cheer about.
And so the England bunting will stay in the garage for another year in homes up and down the country and, despite what the survey says, fans will not be reaching for flags of another nation instead.
To suddenly adorn your very English home with Dutch flags or the French tricolore would be like me swapping my Aston Villa car sticker for a Birmingham City one. Unthinkable, unimaginable, downright wrong. It would be like my parents, who grew up in the shadow of Worcestershire's New Road cricket ground suddenly purchasing season tickets at Edgbaston.
Now you might say with a month' long festival of football on our screens night after night we need to grasp something tangible and adopt a tream to make the event worth watching.
I can understand people whose parents hail from Turin wanting to see how the Italians get on with their own side missing in action and I can understand fans being interested in a country because it features players from their chosen Premier League club.
Liverpool fans will no doubt, for example be keeping an eye on Spain because of Torres and Alonso but will Manchester United fans who normally follow England tune in to follow Portugal's progress because of Ronaldo and Nani when the Portuguese in football terms have ruined England's tournament in the past?
Perhaps it is just sour grapes that my team Aston Villa has just one representative in the tournament - Wilfred Bouma who plays for Holland but love Freddie as I do, I still can't really warm to cheering on the Dutch. (Beside the Villa team is predominantly made up of Englishmen - a statistic which usually makes me very proud - well it would if England were in the tournament!)
No England are not in the competition and, while I love watching football, I certainly haven't felt motivated to tune into the Euros 2008 so far.
So there will be no Italian flags hanging from my car aerial, no German bratwurst on the barbecue and no Dutch clog-wearing in my house.
Nor will I be hot-footing it over to the continent as this survey claims three per cent of England fans will do to try and capture some of the atmosphere of the event.
Instead I will have to bide my time until Wimbledon - although there goes another event which lacks any real hopes for our British stars and then await the Olympics - ditto.
Until then I will try and occupy myself , like thousands of other Britains, by making the most of the current good weather. Trouble is English weather - like our football team - is usually a real let-down.
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Don't forget the cricket Lisa. England have just won a Test series against the Kiwis - and after the one-day series we've got the South African Test series.
If the weather stays good, get down to the cricket at Edgbaston or, if you must, New Road.
It's our national summer sport, after all.
Couldn't care less who wins.......er, as long as it's not the Germans........oh, or the French........or the Croatians, don't fancy the Poles too much either....I'd rather the Spanish didn't too well to be honest. Hmmm, perhaps it's best if I don't watch.
Couldn't care less who wins.......er, as long as it's not the Germans........oh, or the French........or the Croatians, don't fancy the Poles too much either....I'd rather the Spanish didn't too well to be honest. Hmmm, perhaps it's best if I don't watch.
I knew people in this country were disappointingly uninterested in a very English sport called Cricket, another sport, probably the second most followed in the world where we also usually flop. But even when England is unrepresented in the Euro but things are looking up at the cricket pitch, to see it completely ignored and instead looking forward to the Wimbledon is quite disheartening. Fortunately as a fan of the two best sports in the world, football and cricket, I'm not missing out.
Lisa while I am totally gutted that England are not playing in Euro 2008 and having my summer holiday to the Alps substituted with a battle with my wife for control of the TV remote, I cannot help but watch the tournament. Having seen Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain show how to play the beautiful game after the first round of matches, I am intrigued to see how the championships will unfold.
In the bottom heavy draw it will be interesting to see who will miss out, with the Italians looking the favourites to succumb in the group of death. It now looks like the team which finishes second in Group C will face the majestic Spanish. In the top half the Germans look their same old clinical selves and the final beckons save for England's nemeses Croatia showing their Wembley form.
These are the best of the best in the footballing world barring the odd Brazilian and Argentinian and as a football fan I am drawn to watch them. Many stars of Austria and Switzerland are sure to be on the shopping list of the Premier League's cash rich clubs. With Martin O'Neill in the prime spot in Vienna, I wouldn't bet against a couple turning up at Villa Park. There are at least four positions that need strengthening for the Claret and Blues and probably a key midfield role going begging by the time the transfer window slams shut.
After today's game I am going with the 'Villa for the Villa' headline. Fantasy football is alive and well before the season starts. I am with you on one thing though. I am not supporting another nationality. Orange doesn't suit me, I hate winkers and Spain has been adopted by the Liverpudlian nation - not for me. So may the best team win or if not them a rank outsider. It passes the time away until the World Cup starts, in just 729 days at the time of writing this!
This is a pointless article by someone who clearly doesn't actually like football. Moreover she is unimaginatively jumping on the 'England aren't there so what's the point' gripe touted primarily by journalists to fill some column space. The fact is people across the land who like football are watching Euro 08 quite happily - unaffected by the little Englander mentality that some journalists seem to think will make them popular if they espouse every now and then. The Post should do the readers a service and leave commentary on the football to those who care - and actually know about it.
Shouldn't you show more professionalism being a reporter (admitting having a Villa car sticker) or do you go to games wearing your scarf and cheer from the press box? Standards have really gone downhill in your job. You might as well employ fanzine writers.
Wonderful - Little Miss Englander strikes again. It's people like you who make me despair for this country.
The absense of the england team at Euros should have been a period for reflection and humility. This kind of blob makes me realise that people still haven't learned an ounce of humility regards England.
Instead of learning a little bit about football (which, given what I've read about your knowledge of the game, may come in benefitial) we have people turning their nose up just because England aren't there to underachieve.
Team England brings out the worst in people. Moronic skin heads, who insist on draping anything that moves in a St George's Flag (and onto the aerial of their German/Italian/French/Japanese built car) while women use it as an excuse to behave like the lager louts many people regard us as.
We should be thanking Steve MacClaren that England aren't there. And this summer should have been spent educating people like yourself about humility, football and respect for other countries (note how perfectly the national anthems of each country has been observed during these championships)
If I ever have a daughter seeking a career in football or sport journalism I would show her your work as a perfect example of how she shouldn't be.
I despair at the small-mindedness of your peice. If you were a bloke I would expect you to have a gut the size of a beer barrel, a skin head and bright red lobster coloured skin.
And your fawning over players does every 'serious' women football writer a disservice. It's embarassing.
As for your allegiance to a football club? Tacky. Football writers on a local paper should be seen to be impartial, even if they have a leaning to one club. you're a journalist not a fanzine writer. How can anyone seriously take a 'fan with a pen?' What happens when something negative needs to be written about Villa? I bet you celebrate every goal and join in the singing...?
I suggest you take a leaf out of Bill Howell, or one of your colleagues on the Post, Mail or Ex/Star - proper football writers, regardless of the car stickers on their cars.
There are some wonderful women football writers out there. They must despair when they read something like this from one of their colleagues. It's one step away from wearing short skirts, low cut tops and leering over players/managers in the vain hope they may jump into bed with you for a story.
Amy Lawrence you most certainly aint.
J
I can't understand the criticism of Lisa Smith's journalist qualities. Remember this was a local blog entry written to generate debate, which it has. She is a well known Villa fan and has never tried to hide it. What you have all missed is that she is the Post's local Villa reporter and she sees it as the Villa fans see it, she doesn't have to be impartial. She's not a national hack, but try getting a positive Villa story out of them. As for the Bill Howell comment, don't make me laugh, a well known Baggies fan, who has enraged recent Villa managers (and the current one) with the quality of his reporting. Read the Villa website on a daily basis and their content is lifted word for word, verbatim by the said 'proper football writer' and its hardly worth buying the paper for Villa news on the evening. At least the Post's reporter gets to talk to the Villa players and gives us a different view.