I wish you wankers had the bottle to actually fuck off and leave the UK. Sadly you didn't and we're stuck with the stench of a dead country that can't find its own dick because it's fallen off.
How can they be wankers AND have dicks that have fallen off? I’m assuming they aren’t transgender
The fact that black England players still face a high degree of very hostile racism is surely much more important than the way in which they choose to highlight that very depressing fact.
One begets the other.
Given the importance of the first it's crucial to adopt effective behaviours on the latter that unify action around it.
Taking the knee has unified action. All the racists boo it. All the politicians who want the racist vote say its ok to boo because its Marxist.
In the end, England lost because we have a very likeable manager who is, however, tactically out of his depth at this level, and who has no idea how to win via attack
Also, and relatedly, Italy were the better side
It's also worth remembering that this was Italy without Spinazolla who added another dimension to their attacking play in the early rounds. England without Beckham but no excuses, just a manager who is supremely pragmatic and willing to change his game plans to make the best use of what he has.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Blessed are the Knee-Takers, for they shall inherit….
Oh
Knee takers won the Euros.
Actually, I think we lost because we didn’t take enough knees. Which racist decided ‘one knee is enough’? It’s this half-hearted attitude - this bumbling through - which leads us on to constant defeat
If we’d knelt down, properly, both knees, on a proper Afghani prayer mat, for at least 37 minutes before each match, we’d surely have won. We didn’t prove our commitment to anti racism sufficiently. And if that doesn’t work we should try lying completely prostrate for sixteen hours at half time while spitting on images of Florence Nightingale. Or we could try attacking the other goal, I suppose
If one of the English players who failed to score a penalty yesterday gets his legs broken or his head bashed in by tattooed racist knuckledraggers in the coming days, you might desist from this type of sarcasm. Seriously, who is even part of the way towards spitting on images of Florence Nightingale?
In the end, England lost because we have a very likeable manager who is, however, tactically out of his depth at this level, and who has no idea how to win via attack
Also, and relatedly, Italy were the better side
Surely its simpler than that. Italy won the tournament because they were the best side in it. Instead of all this "IT'S COMING HOME" crap like football owes England something, the focus should have been on what an amazing job a relatively young team had done in getting that far.
The "50 years of hurt" crap is like a boulder weighing the players down. As is the eternal tirade by the fans and the media against their own team and their own manager. Every England team and coach since St Bobby Robson has been attacked and reviled.
The problem isn't Southgate. Or the players. Its the fans. Only victory in every tournament is enough because victory is England's by right. Cobblers. The team were fantastic, lifted everyone's spirits bar the racist scum, and despite a talent deficit to the Italians almost snatched it.
Celebrate the heroic defeats. Every other country does it.
You normally talk nonsense. But there is something in this
I did wonder, yesterday, if playing at Wembley was actually a downside for England. Too much emotional pressure
Perhaps the first tournament-winning English team will do it away, when we barely notice
But Southgate is a problem. Too cautious, too defensive, too inflexible, when he has an embarrassing wealth of attacking players. Sadly we are stuck with him now. Because, knee
I wish you wankers had the bottle to actually fuck off and leave the UK. Sadly you didn't and we're stuck with the stench of a dead country that can't find its own dick because it's fallen off.
How can they be wankers AND have dicks that have fallen off? I’m assuming they aren’t transgender
If you are suggesting that that was not Max's most coherent contribution to PB I would have to respectfully agree.
The fact is that Italy beat 2 better teams than England in Belgium and Spain to even get to the final. They were worthy winners of the tournament even although England gave a fairly good account of themselves. 33 games unbeaten and in the second half especially you could see why. My fear on England's behalf is that their extremely favourable run to the final leads to more delusion.
Last night I thought Pickford, Shaw, Maguire, Walker and Rice had good games, others not so much. Mount, Kane and Sterling were all pretty anonymous, the latter disappointingly so after an excellent tournament. A lot of that was down to the Italian defence which was just outstanding, Chiellini and Bonucci in particular.
England are not in my view playing to their strengths and won't for as long as Southgate is manager. The Rice Philips partnership in midfield ahead of a back 5 leaves the front players isolated and starved of service. Both Rice and Philips are hardworking and diligent but there is no flair from them at all. I would love to see what a Mancini might do with this squad but Southgate seems to be there for as long as he wants.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
Using the same material as Darren Grimes is a capital offence.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
The worse thing was that the media were absolutely appalling. Mawkish and bombastic by turns. The point about the stiff upper lip was that none ever knew if they had got you beat, the stupid and overblown garbage from the popular press was emetic and somehow, very un-English. Bill Shankly´s line "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that" was a joke. Yet every media commentator in the country seems to have taken it as words to live by. The team were understated and mostly good sports, the media could hardly have been more different. Awful.
It was such a breath of fresh air to see England pushing forward against Ukraine and Denmark.
The thinking was presumably that we weren't good enough to employ such attacking tactics against Germany and Italy.
Why not?
Yes, that is what England have the players to do well. The likes of Shaw should get forward to work with Sterling and give him options, not replace him in the wide positions. They need to develop partnerships like that which facilitate attacking play. Who's job was it to give Kane the ball on a run into the inside right of the box where he is at his most dangerous? Apparently no one's because it never happened, not even once. England have speed, stamina and a genuine goal threat from players who play for clubs who play without fear week in and week out, home or away. That is how the national team should play too. But they don't. They play like Middlesbrough who are pleased to hang on for that draw and are always anxiously looking over their shoulder.
In the end, England lost because we have a very likeable manager who is, however, tactically out of his depth at this level, and who has no idea how to win via attack
Also, and relatedly, Italy were the better side
Surely its simpler than that. Italy won the tournament because they were the best side in it. Instead of all this "IT'S COMING HOME" crap like football owes England something, the focus should have been on what an amazing job a relatively young team had done in getting that far.
The "50 years of hurt" crap is like a boulder weighing the players down. As is the eternal tirade by the fans and the media against their own team and their own manager. Every England team and coach since St Bobby Robson has been attacked and reviled.
The problem isn't Southgate. Or the players. Its the fans. Only victory in every tournament is enough because victory is England's by right. Cobblers. The team were fantastic, lifted everyone's spirits bar the racist scum, and despite a talent deficit to the Italians almost snatched it.
Celebrate the heroic defeats. Every other country does it.
You normally talk nonsense. But there is something in this
I did wonder, yesterday, if playing at Wembley was actually a downside for England. Too much emotional pressure
Perhaps the first tournament-winning English team will do it away, when we barely notice
But Southgate is a problem. Too cautious, too defensive, too inflexible, when he has an embarrassing wealth of attacking players. Sadly we are stuck with him now. Because, knee
Again, if not Southgate then whom? With which players? Under Southgate you lot have made the semi-final of the World Cup and the Final of the Euros in successive tournaments. The idea that he is not doing the job is absurd. Unless of course the only outcome acceptable is to win every tournament every time because the game owes England.
It isn't Wembley that's the problem. Its the fans absurd sense of entitlement.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour.
He was not being funny and it had nothing to do with humour.
It was a wild comment, revealing a very nasty streak which I'm afraid has really raised its ugly head these past few years. Brexit fuelled it. Cummings and Johnson gave it legitimacy.
The fact is that Italy beat 2 better teams than England in Belgium and Spain to even get to the final. They were worthy winners of the tournament even although England gave a fairly good account of themselves. 33 games unbeaten and in the second half especially you could see why. My fear on England's behalf is that their extremely favourable run to the final leads to more delusion.
Last night I thought Pickford, Shaw, Maguire, Walker and Rice had good games, others not so much. Mount, Kane and Sterling were all pretty anonymous, the latter disappointingly so after an excellent tournament. A lot of that was down to the Italian defence which was just outstanding, Chiellini and Bonucci in particular.
England are not in my view playing to their strengths and won't for as long as Southgate is manager. The Rice Philips partnership in midfield ahead of a back 5 leaves the front players isolated and starved of service. Both Rice and Philips are hardworking and diligent but there is no flair from them at all. I would love to see what a Mancini might do with this squad but Southgate seems to be there for as long as he wants.
Stirling hasn't played a good game all season. That he played instead of Foden would have been a surprise to all Man City watchers. Guardiola's no slouch and he'd stopped playing Stirling. I thought the best player on the field was Walker. It's easy to criticise Southgate's lack of tactical acumen but when the wily Chiellini said Stirling was the player they feared Southgate should have smelt a rat
Almost immediately after the match we saw an appalling outburst of racist abuse aimed at Rashford, Sancho and Saka. Rightly condemned by England management.
Anyone still going to claim they shouldn't take the knee because in doing so they are supporting Marxism?
The English game remains infested with racism. Sadly. They take the knee to show the morons who claim to be fans whilst hating players for being forrin are not welcome.
It's almost as if booing the knee was a sign of racist intent rather than anything else.
Booing national anthems is very poor too.
Booing is poor in any form, rude and disrespectful.
However, the fact that racist incidents occur does not lead directly to "we must take the knee" as the means to combat it, which we know is a polarising gesture, and carries significant objections from non-racists. Including me.
What is needed is leadership and a unifying gesture that all can rally around, and exposes, marginalises and drives out the undesirables.
I'd suggest standing in a circle and linking arms to show unity against racism before a match.
So replace one gesture with another gesture? What's the difference?
Associated baggage of kneeling
Plus in the US kneeling is a standard sporting manoeuvre (I think a break when the quarterback wants to slow things down) but in the UK it betokens submission
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
In the end, England lost because we have a very likeable manager who is, however, tactically out of his depth at this level, and who has no idea how to win via attack
Also, and relatedly, Italy were the better side
Surely its simpler than that. Italy won the tournament because they were the best side in it. Instead of all this "IT'S COMING HOME" crap like football owes England something, the focus should have been on what an amazing job a relatively young team had done in getting that far.
The "50 years of hurt" crap is like a boulder weighing the players down. As is the eternal tirade by the fans and the media against their own team and their own manager. Every England team and coach since St Bobby Robson has been attacked and reviled.
The problem isn't Southgate. Or the players. Its the fans. Only victory in every tournament is enough because victory is England's by right. Cobblers. The team were fantastic, lifted everyone's spirits bar the racist scum, and despite a talent deficit to the Italians almost snatched it.
Celebrate the heroic defeats. Every other country does it.
You normally talk nonsense. But there is something in this
I did wonder, yesterday, if playing at Wembley was actually a downside for England. Too much emotional pressure
Perhaps the first tournament-winning English team will do it away, when we barely notice
But Southgate is a problem. Too cautious, too defensive, too inflexible, when he has an embarrassing wealth of attacking players. Sadly we are stuck with him now. Because, knee
Again, if not Southgate then whom? With which players? Under Southgate you lot have made the semi-final of the World Cup and the Final of the Euros in successive tournaments. The idea that he is not doing the job is absurd. Unless of course the only outcome acceptable is to win every tournament every time because the game owes England.
It isn't Wembley that's the problem. Its the fans absurd sense of entitlement.
Mancini. Buy him
Also what’s this ‘you lot’? Have you so thoroughly left England (for Scotland, lol) that you are no longer ‘English’?
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
Yes, the sort of people that say "f**k off" when asked to wear a mask...
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
Boris Johnson is just like the Duke of York, I mean he marches up the hill....
Boris Johnson will urge people today not to return to life as normal after July 19 unless they want to risk restrictions being reimposed.
As he confirms that all remaining limits on social contact will be lifted in England a week today, the prime minister will emphasise that “caution is absolutely vital” in the face of rising infections.
Wales is to review its restrictions on Thursday and Scotland is due to lift some restrictions on July 19 and most on August 9.
Senior scientific advisers urged people yesterday to continue to work from home over the summer and not to be “overenthusiastic about social contact” because of the risk of thousands of hospital admissions a day.
Susan Hopkins, of Public Health England, said that no one could “ringingly endorse” the decision to lift all restrictions and the country had to be braced for them to return at short notice if hospital admissions rose too much.
Johnson has dropped claims that the end of restrictions is “irreversible” after scientists warned him that the decision to open up fully was a gamble that could go wrong.
The prime minister will strike a wary tone about life after July 19 as he marks the end of lockdown measures with a plea to carry on with many habits formed during the pandemic.
A government source said that “the best way to make sure we never go back is to be cautious”.
Johnson will say that England is “tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our road map out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning”.
While praising the success of the vaccination programme, which has “weakened” the link between infections and hospital admissions, he will caution that “the global pandemic is not over yet”.
He will say: “Cases will rise as we unlock, so as we confirm our plans today, our message will be clear. Caution is absolutely vital and we must all take responsibility so we don’t undo our progress, ensuring we continue to protect our NHS.”
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
If we are going to discuss football all day (we lost on penalties to a team that was better for 115 minutes of the match) I may as well do some work.
Before I go though a simple piece of advice
Life hack: skip sleep the night before getting passport photos taken, to more accurately reflect how you're going to look to customs officers after international flights
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
That's nothing to do with elections. It's to do with the wrong people still being attracted to following the team.
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
More than one, actually.
I don't hate myself at all. I am a libertarian. Love myself. If you are equating 'me' with this country then that's your problem. I don't fly a particular flag. Or religion. Or tribe. I travel free and live free. I see the good and bad in many peoples and places, not falling into the trap of believing that any one has a monopoly on goodness.
By and large tribalism in all its forms is responsible for the evils of the world.
As for elections, I voted Conservative (twice) at the last elections and Green (once).
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
You don't want to force someone who doesn't want to do it.
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
Life hack: skip sleep the night before getting passport photos taken, to more accurately reflect how you're going to look to customs officers after international flights
In the end, England lost because we have a very likeable manager who is, however, tactically out of his depth at this level, and who has no idea how to win via attack
Also, and relatedly, Italy were the better side
Surely its simpler than that. Italy won the tournament because they were the best side in it. Instead of all this "IT'S COMING HOME" crap like football owes England something, the focus should have been on what an amazing job a relatively young team had done in getting that far.
The "50 years of hurt" crap is like a boulder weighing the players down. As is the eternal tirade by the fans and the media against their own team and their own manager. Every England team and coach since St Bobby Robson has been attacked and reviled.
The problem isn't Southgate. Or the players. Its the fans. Only victory in every tournament is enough because victory is England's by right. Cobblers. The team were fantastic, lifted everyone's spirits bar the racist scum, and despite a talent deficit to the Italians almost snatched it.
Celebrate the heroic defeats. Every other country does it.
You normally talk nonsense. But there is something in this
I did wonder, yesterday, if playing at Wembley was actually a downside for England. Too much emotional pressure
Perhaps the first tournament-winning English team will do it away, when we barely notice
But Southgate is a problem. Too cautious, too defensive, too inflexible, when he has an embarrassing wealth of attacking players. Sadly we are stuck with him now. Because, knee
Again, if not Southgate then whom? With which players? Under Southgate you lot have made the semi-final of the World Cup and the Final of the Euros in successive tournaments. The idea that he is not doing the job is absurd. Unless of course the only outcome acceptable is to win every tournament every time because the game owes England.
It isn't Wembley that's the problem. Its the fans absurd sense of entitlement.
Mancini. Buy him
Also what’s this ‘you lot’? Have you so thoroughly left England (for Scotland, lol) that you are no longer ‘English’?
You lot = England fans. Have had nothing more than a passing interest in the England team's exploits for a good while. And zero interest in the England Rugby team.
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
You don't want to force someone who doesn't want to do it.
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
Yes, the sort of people that say "f**k off" when asked to wear a mask...
That made me chuckle. Good response.
In my defence, the mask thing is about pent up frustration about restrictions to our civil liberties. The CDC have already reported that there's no need for vaccinated people to be wearing them. This is typical Boris Johnson to vacillate and change his mind yet again.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour.
He was not being funny and it had nothing to do with humour.
It was a wild comment, revealing a very nasty streak which I'm afraid has really raised its ugly head these past few years. Brexit fuelled it. Cummings and Johnson gave it legitimacy.
It wasn’t nasty- just garbage. He has a tendency to draw false links to contemporary politics from the Dunny-on-the-Wold by-election of 1712 just as much as Rashford’s miss last night
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. It is disgraceful that people like that are allowed to vote.... Should only be proper people - property holders, or people with a degree from a decent university.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
Yes, the sort of people that say "f**k off" when asked to wear a mask...
That made me chuckle. Good response.
In my defence, the mask thing is about pent up frustration about restrictions to our civil liberties. The CDC have already reported that there's no need for vaccinated people to be wearing them. This is typical Boris Johnson to vacillate and change his mind yet again.
That would be the same CDC who last year claimed that Covid wasn't transmitted by air because the particles were too big...
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
But it's not really 'England', is it? There is plenty of similar violence all over the world, by all people. In this country, football attracts the tiny (in percentage terms) of people who think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. Add in drink, and it becomes much worse.
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
Blimey. If Cocky is a leftie then you must be Attila the Hun. Mind you with so many regenerations perhaps you were at one point.
I put this together - it takes the seven day average, and compares it to the seven day average the day before, and plots the percentage changes, up and down....
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
As someone who has to investigate staff mobile phones and backups of messages on a few occasions it maybe they don't back up everything, sometimes they just keep a back of emails, browsing history, call logs, etc but not texts as they set up via a non app system and can only be backed up via a physical backup rather than a cloud backup.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
Blimey. If Cocky is a leftie then you must be Attila the Hun. Mind you with so many regenerations perhaps you were at one point.
It's a lazy way to dismiss someone with whom you don't agree.
Mind you, I occasionally label people 'Far Right' which ought to earn me the naughty step.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
As someone who has to investigate staff mobile phones and backups of messages on a few occasions it maybe they don't back up everything, sometimes they just keep a back of emails, browsing history, call logs, etc but not texts as they set up via a non app system and can only be backed up via a physical backup rather than a cloud backup.
IIRC all work chat systems in banking/finance have to be backed up and available for monitoring. I thought that was a legal requirement - or is that just best practise?
Or do you mean they were using SMS from their work mobiles - in which case the provider has the messages on their servers/backups.
Mr. Jessop, one of the slightly depressing things I covered at university was that one aspect of equality was women behaving worse, because men did.
In some regards, of course. Drunken loutishness and violence being the obvious ones.
Mr. Jonathan, I find it very peculiar. In 2009 I did take the decision to support no driver or team, and I think I've enjoyed F1 a lot more than if I had a dog in the fight. It's certainly made me appreciate the midfield more.
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
What would happen if someone went to the Celtic home end (do they have those still/there?) in a sash and bowler hat?
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
Yes, I get more invested in rugby than football. If we lose, I see it as an affront to my masculinity
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
You don't want to force someone who doesn't want to do it.
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
Did you miss the Europa League final?
Also watch a goalkeeper make a clearance when under pressure. They are going for height and distance, direction immaterial. A penalty is a dead ball, which is a factor, but it is also under immense pressure with someone diddling about in your eyeline. The instinctive response of "height and distance, direction immaterial" is not really what you are looking for!
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
Messages are encrypted at rest on the server. Pin reset generates new key pair.
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
Oh and also google: Scotland....fans....Wembley...1977.
Yes a long time ago and yes I would love to know that it's all different now.
I wish you wankers had the bottle to actually fuck off and leave the UK. Sadly you didn't and we're stuck with the stench of a dead country that can't find its own dick because it's fallen off.
How can they be wankers AND have dicks that have fallen off? I’m assuming they aren’t transgender
If you are suggesting that that was not Max's most coherent contribution to PB I would have to respectfully agree.
Perfectly coherent, even though I disagree with the sentiment. Max is saying that Scots (presumably) are wankers (a proportionate number of whom should have the required appendage) and that the country has lost it's dick. Struggling to think of that many Dicks in a Scottish context, but I guess Dicky Leonard could be the one. Not a Scot, of course, but he is a Dick that Scotland has lost, to the extent he's no longer SLab leader. What I can't work out is why Scotland would be trying to find him!
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
LOL, that’s dangerous.
A few years ago, I read of a man whose party trick was to let off fireworks from his arse. Only this time, he lit it at the wrong end, and it went down rather than up. At the point of entry, it’s temperature was similar to that at which divers weld metal underwater.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
Blimey. If Cocky is a leftie then you must be Attila the Hun. Mind you with so many regenerations perhaps you were at one point.
I believe he was for some time (maybe even still) partnered with a Corbynette.
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
You don't want to force someone who doesn't want to do it.
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
Did you miss the Europa League final?
Did you miss the last time England won a penalty shoot out ?
Here's Pickford scoring in it with an unstoppable shot:
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
But it's not really 'England', is it? There is plenty of similar violence all over the world, by all people. In this country, football attracts the tiny (in percentage terms) of people who think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. Add in drink, and it becomes much worse.
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
(*) They are mostly male.
Very good post. In a way I was trying to express that but you did it better.
When Jo Cox was murdered it touched on what I think is a similar continuum to the kicking of that Asian bloke inside Wembley yesterday (with the words 'take that you Paki scum').
'Toxic masculinity' is rearing its ugly head at the moment, fuelled by an apparent legitimacy that English nationalism is always, and in every regard, a 'good thing.'
Ministers have launched secret talks on a short-term visa scheme for foreign lorry drivers, as they race to prevent a staff shortage overwhelming the haulage sector.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
More than one, actually.
I don't hate myself at all. I am a libertarian. Love myself. If you are equating 'me' with this country then that's your problem. I don't fly a particular flag. Or religion. Or tribe. I travel free and live free. I see the good and bad in many peoples and places, not falling into the trap of believing that any one has a monopoly on goodness.
By and large tribalism in all its forms is responsible for the evils of the world.
As for elections, I voted Conservative (twice) at the last elections and Green (once).
Fair enough. You’re quite similar to me! I hope that doesn’t unnerve you
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
Labour politics IMO suffers from a nostalgic sentimentality. Whether your preferred tipple is 1997, 2017 or 1945 the effect is the same. Carrying irrelevant baggage that hinders your cause.
On the football, after the Germany game the nostalgia X years of hurt media machine spun up and we were doomed.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting the many different kinds of people in England who decently and passionately support the country to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years, in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
England are not in my view playing to their strengths and won't for as long as Southgate is manager.
Despite his less than stellar CV (got Bura relegated and 2004 Sports Book of the Year) Southgate is on a par with other recent England managers like Hodgson, SGE and Capello with a ~60% win rate. He'll get the usual three major tournaments so he'll be at WC2022 and will get fucked off after that. Even if England win he'll get a mega money deal from a big European club so one way or another he'll be gone by 2023.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
Music in the UK has de temps en temps provided that outlet.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
Blimey. If Cocky is a leftie then you must be Attila the Hun. Mind you with so many regenerations perhaps you were at one point.
I believe he was for some time (maybe even still) partnered with a Corbynette.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
As someone who has to investigate staff mobile phones and backups of messages on a few occasions it maybe they don't back up everything, sometimes they just keep a back of emails, browsing history, call logs, etc but not texts as they set up via a non app system and can only be backed up via a physical backup rather than a cloud backup.
IIRC all work chat systems in banking/finance have to be backed up and available for monitoring. I thought that was a legal requirement - or is that just best practise?
Or do you mean they were using SMS from their work mobiles - in which case the provider has the messages on their servers/backups.
They are kept/monitored but occasionally there's a gap between backups and if they were wiped between the last backup and a current conversation then they were never backed up.
With people WFH during the period the messages were sent I can see it happening.
IIRC the provider can only tell you when/where/to who sent the message.
If they were using iMessage then the network provider wouldn't be able to provide back ups as it never goes via their servers.
Taking the hype away, England aren't the second best team in Europe. They got an easy draw, but beat those put in front of them by playing a solid well drilled approach (like they did in the World Cup), but are rather one dimensional and would have also definitely struggled to beat at least France, Belgium or Spain if they had had to play them.
The question is can the now develop further beyond this rather predictable safety first style. In theory they have the players (and more outside the squad), but can the manager find a way of marrying all the talent to add that missing dimension.
The talent is definitely there in the squad, and defensively we are excellent now. We breeze through qualification, and can thwart most offences, but we simply have not figured out how to get the best out of our forwards. Only one game in the tournament did it gel, against Ukraine. We should have swept aside Scotland, and Denmark. We need to get a lot more shots out of the team, with Kane, Rashford, Sterling and more we ought to be seeing maybe twice as many shots as we are.
Also, please make all England players practice tacking penalties without anything tricksy, focus on taking the shot and nothing else. Djokovic does not get a set point and then decide to try something a bit funny to throw his opponent off, he takes a shot he will have practiced probably hundreds of thousands of times.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years, in particular.
Again, says everything I was trying to hint at only better.
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
Oh and also google: Scotland....fans....Wembley...1977.
Yes a long time ago and yes I would love to know that it's all different now.
Seemed to be all different a few weeks ago. Tartan army came down, partied, went home. Football fans of any nation are capable of acting like lunatics - Rangers fans trashing Manchester a decade or so back for one example.
Its just that drunken hooliganism and England football fans are so common that its baked into expectations. It seems to be an absurd sense of self-entitlement.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
When I followed Hibs in the early 1960s we went to a match in Glasgow and the violence had my sister and myself cowering in fear
On the return journey the train was trashed and we were grateful that we were in a non compartment carriage
Indeed the train was stopped at Falkirk and arrests were made
It was a very frightening experience
Violence in football has thankfully been reduced but there is an underlying threat from a minority of hooligans and very much an unacceptable number of racists
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
Oh and also google: Scotland....fans....Wembley...1977.
Yes a long time ago and yes I would love to know that it's all different now.
Seemed to be all different a few weeks ago. Tartan army came down, partied, went home. Football fans of any nation are capable of acting like lunatics - Rangers fans trashing Manchester a decade or so back for one example.
Its just that drunken hooliganism and England football fans are so common that its baked into expectations. It seems to be an absurd sense of self-entitlement.
Yes of course. As I posted yesterday, I was in Central London yesterday day and it was chock full of pissed up England footie fans. A not very attractive spectacle, although also diverse with all colours acting idiotically/brashly together and separatelyh.
As you say, every nation has them. And while England might have written the book on football firms/violence/etc, a bit like cricket, other nations routinely beat us hollow at it.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
You actually got a ‘like’ for this paean of puerile lefty self-hatred. This is why you lose elections
More than one, actually.
I don't hate myself at all. I am a libertarian. Love myself. If you are equating 'me' with this country then that's your problem. I don't fly a particular flag. Or religion. Or tribe. I travel free and live free. I see the good and bad in many peoples and places, not falling into the trap of believing that any one has a monopoly on goodness.
By and large tribalism in all its forms is responsible for the evils of the world.
As for elections, I voted Conservative (twice) at the last elections and Green (once).
Fair enough. You’re quite similar to me! I hope that doesn’t unnerve you
+1
It doesn't and I've read your several posts from far flung places around the world and always concurred. You inspire me to visit places that are still virgin to me.
On the football... We were outplayed - on balance - over the 120, although I felt we had the better of the first half (the half time stats didn't really support that though). We were lucky not to lose it in 90 minutes given the second half was mostly one way traffic.
But what a tounament performance. We started slow, but then we saw off Germany, showed class against Ukraine and were deserved winners, with a bit of luck, in the semis. Whatever the criticisms of Southgate from last night, he's turned this side around in a way that no other manager has done for the last 25 years or so. The side is exciting, I can't remember in my lifeltime ever having the likes of Grealish, Sancho, Saka all at once (and not even necessarily starting). We used to depend on one crative player - Gazza, Beckham.
I'm disappointed, of course, but on balance I'm more excited about England as a team than I have been for well over 20 years. And I was wrong with some of my snide comments after the early games.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
Messages are encrypted at rest on the server. Pin reset generates new key pair.
Messages lost.
If it is a company/government system, then that shouldn't be how it is configured. If nothing else, master keys for company run services are thing.
Otherwise wiping evidence becomes a matter of entering the wrong code to trigger self destruct...
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
But it's not really 'England', is it? There is plenty of similar violence all over the world, by all people. In this country, football attracts the tiny (in percentage terms) of people who think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. Add in drink, and it becomes much worse.
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
(*) They are mostly male.
Fight Club, or at least boxing clubs. Provide a venue where they can fight like-minded people instead of random members of the public.
When I was a child I was a mad Sunderland supporter. Nowadays I prefer athletics and rugby, even cricket. There has always been elements of thuggery and ohter unpleasantness associated with lots of sport - let's remember what the word 'fan' is short for. Modern social media exaggerates the importance of a lot of incidents, the news takes it even further as they have 24hours to fill non-stop. Most fans of all sports are pretty ordinary folk and I dislike them all being tainted by the actions of a relative few. To then have the whole English nation condemned as well is frankly ridiculous.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
I think the word is "tribalism": we evolved social coherence in the small and so dominated the planet, but it will be civilization's destruction unless we can do it globally.
Health Minister Edward Argar has joined the Prime Minister in condemning the "appalling" racist abuse of England players, telling Sky News that "there is no place for that in our country"
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Absolutely. Common sense like the lad with the smoke flare up his arse, or the guy celebrating body positivity for fatties and grower-not-shower men by standing naked outside Wembley Park PC World jiggling what he had for the world.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
Oh and also google: Scotland....fans....Wembley...1977.
Yes a long time ago and yes I would love to know that it's all different now.
Seemed to be all different a few weeks ago. Tartan army came down, partied, went home. Football fans of any nation are capable of acting like lunatics - Rangers fans trashing Manchester a decade or so back for one example.
Its just that drunken hooliganism and England football fans are so common that its baked into expectations. It seems to be an absurd sense of self-entitlement.
Yes of course. As I posted yesterday, I was in Central London yesterday day and it was chock full of pissed up England footie fans. A not very attractive spectacle, although also diverse with all colours acting idiotically/brashly together and separatelyh.
As you say, every nation has them. And while England might have written the book on football firms/violence/etc, a bit like cricket, other nations routinely beat us hollow at it.
It used to be far worse. The first time I ever went to Upton Park in 1977, someone had spray-painted "Hitler was Right, Gas the Jews" over one of the entrances. Outside the ground was thronged with people selling Bulldog, and Spearhead, and Nazi memorabilia.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our roadmap out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning."
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
Messages are encrypted at rest on the server. Pin reset generates new key pair.
Messages lost.
If it is a company/government system, then that shouldn't be how it is configured. If nothing else, master keys for company run services are thing.
Otherwise wiping evidence becomes a matter of entering the wrong code to trigger self destruct...
Hello, this is the government/civil service.
The same type of people who put the details of everyone who receives child benefit, bank details, names (including the children) etc on an unencrypted CD and sent it through the regular post and would have continued to do so if they hadn't (in)famously lost a CD just like that.
I wish you wankers had the bottle to actually fuck off and leave the UK. Sadly you didn't and we're stuck with the stench of a dead country that can't find its own dick because it's fallen off.
How can they be wankers AND have dicks that have fallen off? I’m assuming they aren’t transgender
If you are suggesting that that was not Max's most coherent contribution to PB I would have to respectfully agree.
Perfectly coherent, even though I disagree with the sentiment. Max is saying that Scots (presumably) are wankers (a proportionate number of whom should have the required appendage) and that the country has lost it's dick. Struggling to think of that many Dicks in a Scottish context, but I guess Dicky Leonard could be the one. Not a Scot, of course, but he is a Dick that Scotland has lost, to the extent he's no longer SLab leader. What I can't work out is why Scotland would be trying to find him!
I used to work (on a Scottish university site) with someone called Willie Dick.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
As someone who has to investigate staff mobile phones and backups of messages on a few occasions it maybe they don't back up everything, sometimes they just keep a back of emails, browsing history, call logs, etc but not texts as they set up via a non app system and can only be backed up via a physical backup rather than a cloud backup.
IIRC all work chat systems in banking/finance have to be backed up and available for monitoring. I thought that was a legal requirement - or is that just best practise?
Or do you mean they were using SMS from their work mobiles - in which case the provider has the messages on their servers/backups.
They are kept/monitored but occasionally there's a gap between backups and if they were wiped between the last backup and a current conversation then they were never backed up.
With people WFH during the period the messages were sent I can see it happening.
IIRC the provider can only tell you when/where/to who sent the message.
If they were using iMessage then the network provider wouldn't be able to provide back ups as it never goes via their servers.
Backups should be daily.
SMS messages are kept for longer than that. I worked in telecoms back end for a bit and it was a running joke about the people who showed up to meetings about that stuff, from the government side..... An SMS message is private between you, the receiver, all the alphabet soup agencies, someone bored at the telco, someone who is paying bored people at the telco £50 for a copy of your messages.....
iMessage etc is blocked in many (all?) finance situations - you don't want back channels.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
But it's not really 'England', is it? There is plenty of similar violence all over the world, by all people. In this country, football attracts the tiny (in percentage terms) of people who think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. Add in drink, and it becomes much worse.
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
(*) They are mostly male.
Fight Club, or at least boxing clubs. Provide a venue where they can fight like-minded people instead of random members of the public.
Boxing clubs and football firms are chalk and apples. There is absolutely no similarity in mindset, intention, attitude, motive. Oh and ability.
The point about football violence is that it is as much as anything young men coming together, in solidarity, to break the rules and place themselves outside society (they don't like us we don't care). Fighting is in their view of the world a natural extension of the pariah not giving a fuck. The focus of this is a football team because it is (or used to be before prawn sandwiches and french imports) local and you might have hung out with the players until they went their way and you went yours. It is also identifiable (red/blue/etc) so provides a convenient marker for loyalties.
A boxing club is disciplined, humble, respectful and rules-bound.
The only time there is no respect is if some cocky git walks in and doesn't show the requisite degree of humility.
There is no or very little overlap between the motives of the two sets of people.
On the football... We were outplayed - on balance - over the 120, although I felt we had the better of the first half (the half time stats didn't really support that though). We were lucky not to lose it in 90 minutes given the second half was mostly one way traffic.
But what a tounament performance. We started slow, but then we saw off Germany, showed class against Ukraine and were deserved winners, with a bit of luck, in the semis. Whatever the criticisms of Southgate from last night, he's turned this side around in a way that no other manager has done for the last 25 years or so. The side is exciting, I can't remember in my lifeltime ever having the likes of Grealish, Sancho, Saka all at once (and not even necessarily starting). We used to depend on one crative player - Gazza, Beckham.
I'm disappointed, of course, but on balance I'm more excited about England as a team than I have been for well over 20 years. And I was wrong with some of my snide comments after the early games.
I thought Italy had the better of the first half to be honest. At half time I was nervous. Italy dominated the second half but at the start of extra time I was confident again as I thought our better fitness would come through. We did edge extra time but didn't create chances. Could have gone either way.
Overall, England had an excellent tournament. Players and manager should be proud.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
England are not in my view playing to their strengths and won't for as long as Southgate is manager.
Despite his less than stellar CV (got Bura relegated and 2004 Sports Book of the Year) Southgate is on a par with other recent England managers like Hodgson, SGE and Capello with a ~60% win rate. He'll get the usual three major tournaments so he'll be at WC2022 and will get fucked off after that. Even if England win he'll get a mega money deal from a big European club so one way or another he'll be gone by 2023.
Begin the thawing of Gary Megson.
Twenty years past his WBA prime and as mad as a bag of shouty frogs. So yes, absolutely!
Gary Neville on Sky News: 'I'm just reading your breaking news and it says "PM condemns racist abuse of England players"... the prime minister said it was okay for the population of this country to boo those players who were trying to promote equality and defend against racism.' https://twitter.com/samuelluckhurst/status/1414493438163173377
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
Very good post. Spot on.
Those of us who remember the 1970s can attest what 'real' hooliganism looks like.
Can we get over football please now? The nations issues do not include an inability to take penalties or even some ugly behaviour by drunk England fans . Never has been , never will be .
Glad to say we have reached almost a zen level relaxed state over never doing well at Eurovision and its all the better for it.Can we do the same for football?
I always found writing football stories to be impossible at uni. The technique as you may know is to write the story backwards, start on the end of the match and as you go through the story work backwards in time.
Here we have all the newspapers turning around not just copy but headlines and photos at an absurd speed to get late editions to tell the story of a game that finished after 11pm.
Yes of course they can start building their reports during the match thanks to the work backwards technique, but I am always in a little bit of awe to see how the newspapers - all of them regardless of how offensive they may be - turn around breaking news like this so quickly.
I was crap at it. Which is why my journalism career lasted all of a year
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
A chap can't even take a few minutes from the table to put up the VE bunting and the portraits of WSC and HM.
Look what happens, Oofy Prosser slips a treble gin into a chap's Pimms when a chap isn't looking, and before a chap knows it a chap has committed the most awful faux pas and the Secretary of the Drones has called you into his office and handed you the blackball.
Comments
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
The thinking was presumably that we weren't good enough to employ such attacking tactics against Germany and Italy.
Why not?
I did wonder, yesterday, if playing at Wembley was actually a downside for England. Too much emotional pressure
Perhaps the first tournament-winning English team will do it away, when we barely notice
But Southgate is a problem. Too cautious, too defensive, too inflexible, when he has an embarrassing wealth of attacking players. Sadly we are stuck with him now. Because, knee
The worse thing was that the media were absolutely appalling. Mawkish and bombastic by turns. The point about the stiff upper lip was that none ever knew if they had got you beat, the stupid and overblown garbage from the popular press was emetic and somehow, very un-English. Bill Shankly´s line "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that" was a joke. Yet every media commentator in the country seems to have taken it as words to live by. The team were understated and mostly good sports, the media could hardly have been more different. Awful.
It isn't Wembley that's the problem. Its the fans absurd sense of entitlement.
It was a wild comment, revealing a very nasty streak which I'm afraid has really raised its ugly head these past few years. Brexit fuelled it. Cummings and Johnson gave it legitimacy.
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1414480596630392835
Plus in the US kneeling is a standard sporting manoeuvre (I think a break when the quarterback wants to slow things down) but in the UK it betokens submission
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
Also what’s this ‘you lot’? Have you so thoroughly left England (for Scotland, lol) that you are no longer ‘English’?
Boris Johnson will urge people today not to return to life as normal after July 19 unless they want to risk restrictions being reimposed.
As he confirms that all remaining limits on social contact will be lifted in England a week today, the prime minister will emphasise that “caution is absolutely vital” in the face of rising infections.
Wales is to review its restrictions on Thursday and Scotland is due to lift some restrictions on July 19 and most on August 9.
Senior scientific advisers urged people yesterday to continue to work from home over the summer and not to be “overenthusiastic about social contact” because of the risk of thousands of hospital admissions a day.
Susan Hopkins, of Public Health England, said that no one could “ringingly endorse” the decision to lift all restrictions and the country had to be braced for them to return at short notice if hospital admissions rose too much.
Johnson has dropped claims that the end of restrictions is “irreversible” after scientists warned him that the decision to open up fully was a gamble that could go wrong.
The prime minister will strike a wary tone about life after July 19 as he marks the end of lockdown measures with a plea to carry on with many habits formed during the pandemic.
A government source said that “the best way to make sure we never go back is to be cautious”.
Johnson will say that England is “tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our road map out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning”.
While praising the success of the vaccination programme, which has “weakened” the link between infections and hospital admissions, he will caution that “the global pandemic is not over yet”.
He will say: “Cases will rise as we unlock, so as we confirm our plans today, our message will be clear. Caution is absolutely vital and we must all take responsibility so we don’t undo our progress, ensuring we continue to protect our NHS.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/july-19-boris-johnson-offers-freedom-day-with-health-warning-dszrjrgfp
For more on this and other news visit http://news.sky.com
In other news, BoZo will say that the common sense of the public is sufficient to prevent further Covid chaos...
Before I go though a simple piece of advice
Life hack: skip sleep the night before getting passport photos taken, to more accurately reflect how you're going to look to customs officers after international flights
https://twitter.com/liamosaur/status/1414475432531939328
How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ?
Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
I don't hate myself at all. I am a libertarian. Love myself. If you are equating 'me' with this country then that's your problem. I don't fly a particular flag. Or religion. Or tribe. I travel free and live free. I see the good and bad in many peoples and places, not falling into the trap of believing that any one has a monopoly on goodness.
By and large tribalism in all its forms is responsible for the evils of the world.
As for elections, I voted Conservative (twice) at the last elections and Green (once).
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
That made me chuckle. Good response.
In my defence, the mask thing is about pent up frustration about restrictions to our civil liberties. The CDC have already reported that there's no need for vaccinated people to be wearing them. This is typical Boris Johnson to vacillate and change his mind yet again.
We absolutely know that the huge throngs trashing central London and dancing maskless on the tube before the match all know how to respect other people and their needs and will respect the requirement to wear a mask on the tube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
(*) They are mostly male.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
Mind you, I occasionally label people 'Far Right' which ought to earn me the naughty step.
Or do you mean they were using SMS from their work mobiles - in which case the provider has the messages on their servers/backups.
In some regards, of course. Drunken loutishness and violence being the obvious ones.
Mr. Jonathan, I find it very peculiar. In 2009 I did take the decision to support no driver or team, and I think I've enjoyed F1 a lot more than if I had a dog in the fight. It's certainly made me appreciate the midfield more.
Edit: fully clothed otherwise, that is.
Messages lost.
Yes a long time ago and yes I would love to know that it's all different now.
A few years ago, I read of a man whose party trick was to let off fireworks from his arse. Only this time, he lit it at the wrong end, and it went down rather than up. At the point of entry, it’s temperature was similar to that at which divers weld metal underwater.
Here's Pickford scoring in it with an unstoppable shot:
https://youtu.be/Q0YhfHOTY7w?t=306
Compare with Saka's medium height, medium pace, medium placement effort.
When Jo Cox was murdered it touched on what I think is a similar continuum to the kicking of that Asian bloke inside Wembley yesterday (with the words 'take that you Paki scum').
'Toxic masculinity' is rearing its ugly head at the moment, fuelled by an apparent legitimacy that English nationalism is always, and in every regard, a 'good thing.'
https://twitter.com/telebusiness/status/1414478447762681858
Ministers have launched secret talks on a short-term visa scheme for foreign lorry drivers, as they race to prevent a staff shortage overwhelming the haulage sector.
On the football, after the Germany game the nostalgia X years of hurt media machine spun up and we were doomed.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years, in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Begin the thawing of Gary Megson.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-to-urge-caution-ahead-of-move-to-step-4
With people WFH during the period the messages were sent I can see it happening.
IIRC the provider can only tell you when/where/to who sent the message.
If they were using iMessage then the network provider wouldn't be able to provide back ups as it never goes via their servers.
Also, please make all England players practice tacking penalties without anything tricksy, focus on taking the shot and nothing else. Djokovic does not get a set point and then decide to try something a bit funny to throw his opponent off, he takes a shot he will have practiced probably hundreds of thousands of times.
Spot on. This is the issue.
Its just that drunken hooliganism and England football fans are so common that its baked into expectations. It seems to be an absurd sense of self-entitlement.
On the return journey the train was trashed and we were grateful that we were in a non compartment carriage
Indeed the train was stopped at Falkirk and arrests were made
It was a very frightening experience
Violence in football has thankfully been reduced but there is an underlying threat from a minority of hooligans and very much an unacceptable number of racists
As you say, every nation has them. And while England might have written the book on football firms/violence/etc, a bit like cricket, other nations routinely beat us hollow at it.
It doesn't and I've read your several posts from far flung places around the world and always concurred. You inspire me to visit places that are still virgin to me.
But what a tounament performance. We started slow, but then we saw off Germany, showed class against Ukraine and were deserved winners, with a bit of luck, in the semis. Whatever the criticisms of Southgate from last night, he's turned this side around in a way that no other manager has done for the last 25 years or so. The side is exciting, I can't remember in my lifeltime ever having the likes of Grealish, Sancho, Saka all at once (and not even necessarily starting). We used to depend on one crative player - Gazza, Beckham.
I'm disappointed, of course, but on balance I'm more excited about England as a team than I have been for well over 20 years. And I was wrong with some of my snide comments after the early games.
Otherwise wiping evidence becomes a matter of entering the wrong code to trigger self destruct...
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
The same type of people who put the details of everyone who receives child benefit, bank details, names (including the children) etc on an unencrypted CD and sent it through the regular post and would have continued to do so if they hadn't (in)famously lost a CD just like that.
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
SMS messages are kept for longer than that. I worked in telecoms back end for a bit and it was a running joke about the people who showed up to meetings about that stuff, from the government side..... An SMS message is private between you, the receiver, all the alphabet soup agencies, someone bored at the telco, someone who is paying bored people at the telco £50 for a copy of your messages.....
iMessage etc is blocked in many (all?) finance situations - you don't want back channels.
The point about football violence is that it is as much as anything young men coming together, in solidarity, to break the rules and place themselves outside society (they don't like us we don't care). Fighting is in their view of the world a natural extension of the pariah not giving a fuck. The focus of this is a football team because it is (or used to be before prawn sandwiches and french imports) local and you might have hung out with the players until they went their way and you went yours. It is also identifiable (red/blue/etc) so provides a convenient marker for loyalties.
A boxing club is disciplined, humble, respectful and rules-bound.
The only time there is no respect is if some cocky git walks in and doesn't show the requisite degree of humility.
There is no or very little overlap between the motives of the two sets of people.
Overall, England had an excellent tournament. Players and manager should be proud.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
https://twitter.com/samuelluckhurst/status/1414493438163173377
Those of us who remember the 1970s can attest what 'real' hooliganism looks like.
Glad to say we have reached almost a zen level relaxed state over never doing well at Eurovision and its all the better for it.Can we do the same for football?
I always found writing football stories to be impossible at uni. The technique as you may know is to write the story backwards, start on the end of the match and as you go through the story work backwards in time.
Here we have all the newspapers turning around not just copy but headlines and photos at an absurd speed to get late editions to tell the story of a game that finished after 11pm.
Yes of course they can start building their reports during the match thanks to the work backwards technique, but I am always in a little bit of awe to see how the newspapers - all of them regardless of how offensive they may be - turn around breaking news like this so quickly.
I was crap at it. Which is why my journalism career lasted all of a year
Look what happens, Oofy Prosser slips a treble gin into a chap's Pimms when a chap isn't looking, and before a chap knows it a chap has committed the most awful faux pas and the Secretary of the Drones has called you into his office and handed you the blackball.
Well, I mean.
"Practicing."