THOSE FUCKING ENGLAND FLAGS!

but still a tasty one right?

Blaming sport for jingoism and nationalism is like blaming religion for war, there's the assumption that the jingoism would'nt find another outlet if football, cricket, rugby or whatever had never existed.

Kate, have you ever been to an international match? Did you see the English fans walking up and down the stands in the last World Cup carrying Japanese and Korean children on their shoulders? Have you watched the buildup to a big match and seen footage of both sets of fans mingling amicably in the streets and bars beforehand? Have you seen the hordes of fans getting colorfully dressed up and using the event as an excuse for a massive party? Chances are you haven't - you'd rather do pretty much anything else.

Of course there's been crowd trouble and hooliganism and riots in the past, unfortunately there will be in the future, but these events are in the minority, and its hardly the 1980s all over again. What you're doing is targeting this massive area and going "its ritualised warfare, its all divisive and evil and wrong" when sport can be as much a unifying factor as a divisive one. Look at the lineup in the average Premiership fixture and see how many people of how many nationalities are inspiriring such adoration from the fans.

What you're doing is like blaming the whole of 60s rock music for the violence at Altamont. I'm not saying you should have any interest in football, but you're letting your distaste for the subject colour your whole perception of something of which you are largely, if not entirely, ignorant.

The ice dancing hooligans are a fearsome bunch.

If you said "there's still far too much of this kind of behaviour in football and it should be stamped out - these attitudes, and the way in which the game deals with it, have to change" I would have agreed with you. Its still unfair to use it as a stick to beat the whole game with, especially as football has done as much, if not more, to counter racism than it has to foster it.

There's something wrong with the English - I'll happily concede we're a bunch of cunts who can't handle drink and every foreign despatch since the Romans has said so. That's a root cause - there's a bellicosity in our culture that feeds off a generalised exceptionalism. Drink briongs it out most, when in truth, there's far more un-exceptioanlism out there. If anything demonstrates the Europeanisation of England, it's football.

Is it wrong that I burst out laughing? Or that the Swiss fans did too?

I don't know what's wrong or right anymore, me.

Except I don't think these attitudes *can* be stamped out of football, because football *IS* symbolic conflict, it is absolutely irreprepreably tied together with us/them attitudes, tribal groupings, competition and all sorts of other things I am inherently suspicious of.

You can say "oh, let's work on making it *symbolic* hatred and *symbolic* violence" but you cannot take the inherent tribalism and competition and symbolism of violence out of football.

Hence I find it vile.

I find bands vile, so much competition ;o)

And surely the violence in Croydon was because in seeing England Play France someone must have come to the conclusion that there must be a this "other" place, France that he was previously unaware of - only knowing Croydon. This spiritual torment of not being aware of this France drove him and those infected with his mind-meme to self-destructive vilence (nice spelling - cheers).

I dislike competative sport, fullstop. It doesn't matter if it's football or tiddlewinks or anything. Maybe that's cause I was raised by hippies, I don't know. That's a part of human and my own nature that I do my best to downplay and avoid, rather than celebrate.

Talking of music, I'm off to see Roger McGuinn tonight. Byrds, eh?

I think *all* competative sport is vile, not just football. Football is just the one that happens to interfere directly in my life the most often, and the violence associated therewith gets the most coverage.

But the "finding out anyway" is U&K - if someone tries to stamp out competition, ppl always find a way to make things competitive anyway. Apparently it's...oh there's no such thing as human nature is there.....it's....instinctive?

there's too much effort put into competing. we'd accomplish / produce more if we put the same effort into collaborating.

if competition is *human* nature then why is the majority of competitive sport so male dominated?

(it's athletics that pisses me off more than team sports - so much effort for nothing.)

(just being devil's advocate Ronan, you understand. I'm on your side really as far as this thread goes at least)

more men play sport than women as purely statistical thing? but, to generalise hideously in the name of humour, have you seen women at a Primark sale? fierce competition.

Having said that, I think people are being a bit disingenuous about Kate's objections. There's a level of aggression and testosterone watching football in stadiums and pubs that I can perfectly well see is intimidating and would not be tolerated by most in other circumstances. Now I can't stop think of Chris shouting "You dirty French cunt" at the television.