BoyBrumby
Englishman
Traditionally we tend to go through periods of feast & famine, success-wise, but we're bloody starving just now:
-Our football team had a World Cup that really redefined the term "mediocre" & we're in real danger of not qualifying for the European Championships after being humiliated by a not-that-good-really Croatian team.
-Our Rugby Union team stumbles from defeat to humiliation followed by defeat scarcely three years after being crowned World Champions with the clubs & the RFU taking in turn to blame each other.
-Our cricket team is being roundly thrashed in Australia & we've been cack in ODIs for the better part of a decade now.
-Our Rugby League team (ok, Great Britain technically, but Carney is the only non-Pom) again failed to make the tri-nations final & we haven't won a test series against Australia since before even I was born.
What I want to know is why? We are absolutely sports-obsessed as a nation (witness the credibility-free Blair government's craven attempts to curry public favour with honours for our Ashes-winning cricket team & World Cup-winning Union team in 2003) yet we are utterly unable to sustain success in any team sport for any length of time. Do we simply lack the mental resilience of our Aussie cousins? Has our sedentary 21st Century lifestyle raised a nation of couch-potatoes?
And I haven't even mentioned Zara Phillips winning the BBC Sports Personality of the year yet.....
-Our football team had a World Cup that really redefined the term "mediocre" & we're in real danger of not qualifying for the European Championships after being humiliated by a not-that-good-really Croatian team.
-Our Rugby Union team stumbles from defeat to humiliation followed by defeat scarcely three years after being crowned World Champions with the clubs & the RFU taking in turn to blame each other.
-Our cricket team is being roundly thrashed in Australia & we've been cack in ODIs for the better part of a decade now.
-Our Rugby League team (ok, Great Britain technically, but Carney is the only non-Pom) again failed to make the tri-nations final & we haven't won a test series against Australia since before even I was born.
What I want to know is why? We are absolutely sports-obsessed as a nation (witness the credibility-free Blair government's craven attempts to curry public favour with honours for our Ashes-winning cricket team & World Cup-winning Union team in 2003) yet we are utterly unable to sustain success in any team sport for any length of time. Do we simply lack the mental resilience of our Aussie cousins? Has our sedentary 21st Century lifestyle raised a nation of couch-potatoes?
And I haven't even mentioned Zara Phillips winning the BBC Sports Personality of the year yet.....