Blog: Ace

Anti - English - is it a class thing?

I'm in a bar last night with some Irish pals. As it is the club house of the London Welsh Rugby Club I am also surrounded by good Welsh folk and a bunch of Aussies who know that the beer there is cheaper than up the road. Also there were a couple of Ladies Rugby Teams supporting both the English and the Anyone but the English. (ABTE's) But predominantly it was anti English with jeers and chat about anyone called Jonny or Toby.
Now I'm not too bothered either way about Rugby but hell I was drawn in to this game - its the semi final of a World Cup for God's sake. And I would have been - I think just as passionate or keen for the Irish boys to win - having an Irish grandmother and therefore technically qualifying to play for Jack Charlton's side - but that's another story. But I would have cheered for the Scots and the Welsh as well.

This is about who do you support when your national team are not playing. Famously the Scots and the Welsh are pretty anti - English and lets accept that for Aussies that is a given. But what is it that gets up peoples' noses. Is it an arrogance thing - I don't think the English team have been particularly arrogant especially after having been walloped by the South Africans - or is it a class thing that the English are all made up of Public Schoolboys from the playing fields of Eton and Harrow. I don't know too much about the educational paths of the English front row but they don't look like toffs to me. Last night it seemed that this was a perfomance of guts and determination and sheer bloody mindedness to deny the French in their own back yard. In a sense it was heroic - it was battling - it was brusing and no place for the feint hearted and certainly no place for a foppish toff that the ABTE's seem to think make up the English side. Jason Robinson, Paul Sackey, Andy Sheridan, Phil Vickery - these guys are warriors and I would have thought deserved the support of the other Home nations when playing agianst foreign opposition.
However what I do know is that most of the people in that bar last night are also anti South African (again - is that a historical thing from aparteid) so if they do reach the final - the ABTE's are going to struggle to know who to support.

by Ace on 10:52 on 14th October 2007