English sport in meltdown

[BoyBrumby]

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.....

[superkingdave]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

-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.

Gareth Carvell?

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by superkingdave

Gareth Carvell?

I presumed he was a plastic Taff a la Harris, but could be wrong.

[Matteh]

I'd say the Rugby Union one was the one to be most concerned about. It looks like it's in a state of utter shambles atm.

With the football, we still made the Quarters (as usual) despite our average displays.
Cricket, we've just won a couple of series in the summer and we're losing to the best team in the world. Not really genned up enough about international Rugby League to comment.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Matteh

I'd say the Rugby Union one was the one to be most concerned about. It looks like it's in a state of utter shambles atm.

With the football, we still made the Quarters (as usual) despite our average displays.
Cricket, we've just won a couple of series in the summer and we're losing to the best team in the world. Not really genned up enough about international Rugby League to comment.

That's sort of my point tho. In both Union & cricket we very recently beat the best in the world & seemed content to rest on the laurels of those achievements. We've certainly gone backwards in both.

As for football, we have the richest & arguably best league in the world in the Premiership, but we haven't won anything of note for 40 years! We passed over the most gifted British manager of his generation in favour of an amiable coach who shares the ruddy complexion of his former boss but little of the great man's motivational skills. A quarter-final is the least we could've expected.

[steds]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

Carney is the only non-Pom

From our last game: Pryce, Senior, Raynor, McGuire, Horne, Fielden, Peacock, Ellis, Wilkin.

[superkingdave]

yeah we'll be buggered when it goes to 4 nations

[Chubb]

Peter Roebuck will tell you it's because of the closure of the mines, the rejection of stoicism in public schools (as if all English sportsmen either worked in a colliery or were privately educated before 1980), and that as a result we're obsessed, and I quote "with pork pies and clever dicks", the whole nation now largely consists of ignorant, racist, xenophobic, drunken louts, and what sporting culture we have is obsessed with the individual rather than the team.

I say cricket is strong but Australia are just too good right now, I still think England could beat any other side in the world, and there are plenty of Englishmen doing really well in other sports, golf, squash, badminton, boxing and track cycling especially.

I do think Union is in serious trouble, though. There has been a certain amount of resting on laurels but there were structural problems that the brilliant players and coach England had glossed over, but have really come home to roost once they retired. They've stayed playing a forward dominated game when most of the rest of the world have focused on the backs.

[steds]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

we haven't won a test series against Australia since before even I was born.

As you've said, we tend to go through periods of feast & famine, except in the period where we could have feasted - the mid-late 80s/very early 90s, we came up against Australia teams containing guys like Wally Lewis, Mal Meninga, Peter Sterling, Brett Kenny, Laurie Daley, etc.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Chubb

Peter Roebuck will tell you it's because of the closure of the mines, the rejection of stoicism in public schools (as if all English sportsmen either worked in a colliery or were privately educated before 1980), and that as a result we're obsessed, and I quote "with pork pies and clever dicks", the whole nation now largely consists of ignorant, racist, xenophobic, drunken louts, and what sporting culture we have is obsessed with the individual rather than the team.

I say cricket is strong but Australia are just too good right now, I still think England could beat any other side in the world, and there are plenty of Englishmen doing really well in other sports, golf, squash, badminton, boxing and track cycling especially.

I do think Union is in serious trouble, though. There has been a certain amount of resting on laurels but there were structural problems that the brilliant players and coach England had glossed over, but have really come home to roost once they retired. They've stayed playing a forward dominated game when most of the rest of the world have focused on the backs.

WRT cricket, we haven't been beating everyone else tho, have we? We went from winning the Ashes to losing in Pakistan & even failed to beat a Sri Lankan team at home who're very much in a transitional phase. In my mind we spent rather too long congratulating ourselves on a job well done.

As for the other sports, I know v little about squash, badmington or track cycling (I suppose we could charitably call them of selective appeal to the public), but in golf there has been no majors since Faldo's Masters in 1996 (and that took a jib of absolutely momumental proportions from Greg Norman) and (I think) Clinton Woods & Junior Witter are the only current English world champion boxers from 17 weight divisions with 4 (respected) titles in each weight. Hatton will probably win a belt the next time he fights, but that's still only 3 champions out of 68 possibles.

[steds]

Still have darts.

[superkingdave]

We're okay at snooker as well

[steds]

Originally Posted by superkingdave

We're okay at snooker as well

Current World Champion: Scottish
Current UK Champion: Chinese (until tomorrow)
Current Grand Prix holder: Australian
Current Malta Cup holder: Irish
Current Welsh Open Champion: English
Current China Open Champion: Welsh
Current Northern Ireland Trophy Holder: Chinese

1 out of 7 ranking tournaments isn't too bad, I suppose...

[Scaly piscine]

An Englishman hasn't won the World Scrabble Championships for 13 years either...

[steds]

The thread title says sport, SP.