England.... Third rate sporting nation...?

Question

After this week's performance when will England being rubbish at sports in general, but particularly the beloved national game of football? Yeah, sure there are flashes in the pan but generally they are rubbish. This year we have seen England lose in the RWC final, England not qualify for Euro 2008, an Englishman not win Wimbledon yet again, Lewis Hamilton not take the World Title.... etc
Is it not time, 41 years after 1966 and all that and 30 years (?) after Wimbledon success, and only two ashes series in 20 odd years plus one RWC in 20 years...... that they wake up? The policy of sport for all, non-competitiveness at school etc etc makes me think the English do not have a "killer/winner" instinct.... Added to this, 60% of the Premier League is not English and no one wants to be England manager, the most likely candidate being an Italian who cannot speak English..... sorry days for England! Any thoughts?
PS I am not a gloating Scot or Aussie, I am just trying to be objective!!!

Hmm, I was hoping for some more erudite answering. As usual the usual whinging and harping on about past glories..... let's look at the stats...
Soccer
Brazil 5
Italy 4 (same size population as England more or less, weaker economy....poorer infrastructure....)
Argentina 3 (smaller population, economically far behind...)
Germany 3
Uruguay
England
France
Holland is smaller and has one the Euro along with other small nations such as Denmark and Greece.
Australia and South Africa have smaller populations and S.A, is viewed as Third World and they have 2 RWC a piece, along with New Zealand, much smaller with 1. If you want to use the small nation thing as an excuse it is pretty lame.... with the population and the wealth of the UK, England at least should be a sporting giant- or is it maybe because your kids prefer getting drunk, smoking on street corners or knifing each other if they are not at home their fat arses playing on the play station eating beans and chips....

Answer 1

Not sure about objective but i get the point, who is in the frame for England football managers job, i thought it was Jose The special One, and he's Portuguese isn't he? and it's a poisoned chalice i would think, careers fall by the wayside because of it. Perhaps part of the problem with our sport is that if schools don't promote it in any way , and most of the information we get seems to say that is fairly true how on earth are we ever going to get world champions at anything. And sorry but i do believe that we have to get to the children young if ever we are going to have a chance in London Olympics and beyond. We do have a number of exceptions to your list, Paula Radcliff for one
and Ricky Hatton for another. And surprisingly some very good footballers, Rugby players, but perhaps its as teams they don't shine, putting on an England shirt used to be a matter of pride but now i don't think that's the case.

Answer 2

Firstly i have to say Alan A, it bugs me that where i now live that people refer to my home land, England, as an island.It isn´t and will only become so when the tide comes in to the Scottish and Welsh borders and does not recede.

As for the asker, well, your definition of third rate is a bit iffy. As for Hamilton not winning the F1 title, he´s a rookie and showed his killer instinct on more than one ocassion, so there goes one argument.

Personally i couldn´t give a crap about other sports, most of which are run by short sighted idiots who refuse to see where the problems are in our structure, football included. But the latter is where my heart is.

The question you should be asking is why do we under achieve at national level football and prosper fairly well at club level? Money at club level and incompetence amongst other things at national level.

There is some truth also in what you added, kids in England today are lazy and spend more time playing their PS3´s instead of getting out and doing what most of us did when we hadn´t even heard of the Specturm , playing football or whatever sport took our interest.

This point of view can be backed up just by looking at the more successful national teams, Brazil Argentina and Italy. From an early age they are out most days playing the game, be it on the beach or back streets with a ball or some other substitute. Their love for the game made them practice for many hours honing skills that are evidently lacking in the professional English player to date.

Until the structure of our game at grass root level is sorted we will always fall short of success. We have only come so far through passion, but even that is dramatically on the wane.

Answer 3

What makes us so great anyway? We are a tiny little island in europe yet we can still compete with the best at every sport ok we dont win often but your forgetting that some nations have never won anything at all in sport.Just because we are not winning everything all the time doesnt mean we dont have top class athletes at every sport that are capable of beating anybody on the right day.

Answer 4

"England lose in the RWC final,"
"Lewis Hamilton not take the World Title"

Basically we came second in 2 major sporting events and that qualifies at third-rate? Surely by even the strictest definition that has to be second rate. Most countries of our size would be more than happy to have come that close - for the population/size of our country and the vast number of sports we play we actually do pretty well. If winning is everything then virtually every country in the world is third-rate.

Answer 5

well you think england are third rate????wake up mister we aint that good.we flatter to decieve.not heart no fight no passion.on wednesday i was ashamed to say i was english.scotland out fans proud northern ireland out fans proud why because their players play for the shirt.england out fans furious load of prima donnas managed by a clown.i wish i could say i was a proud englishman but i can't because what is there to be proud of???????????????????????

Answer 6

England suck in Football but are good in playing Rugby, unlucky they could not win it but they'll be back

Answer 7

But we are first rate hosts - everyone wants to live here.

Since when is reaching a final of a world cup, considered third rate?

Answer 8

Its a crying shame really.

Answer 9

3rd. As high as that eh
As they say it is the taking part that counts lol

Answer 10

i think your a pri*k

how about this we have won the football world cup
3 times rugby world cup finalists
ashes wins
been best in the world at cricket
had english teams win henikne cup and champions league cut us some slack its hard to find talent in a tiny contry like england and weve done pretty damn well if you ask me !!!!!!!!