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right-track · 10-11-2006, 05:27 PM

What is Football to an Englishman?

Bill Shankly famously once said, that..."football isn't a matter of life or death...it's much more important than that".

To an Englishman, football is everything.
At club level, it's a fierce sense of regional belonging.
At international level, those tribalistic tendancies are forgotten and regional differences are put aside.

Football unifies England in a way nothing else can.
A substitute for war, a crusade for past national glories?

A Frenchman once commented on what our national game meant to the English.
"The English treat Football as war and war as sport".
Never a truer word said.

If the average Englishman had a choice of winning a war against Argentina (as in the Falklands War of 1982), or beating Maradonna and co. in the 1986 World Cup Finals (which England lost 2-1), then the Falkland Islanders would be speaking Spanish today.

What's the point of this thread?
To explain why the word "soccer" is an obscenity to our ears, a chance for the Americans here to ask questions about, "the beautiful game" and an opportunity for fellow Englishmen to add there thoughts on what football means to them and it's effects on English society.

10-11-2006, 05:27 PM	#1 (permalink)
right-track Atchin' Akai Join Date: May 2005 Location: Unamerica Posts: 8,769	Football and the English. What is Football to an Englishman? Bill Shankly famously once said, that..."football isn't a matter of life or death...it's much more important than that". To an Englishman, football is everything. At club level, it's a fierce sense of regional belonging. At international level, those tribalistic tendancies are forgotten and regional differences are put aside. Football unifies England in a way nothing else can. A substitute for war, a crusade for past national glories? A Frenchman once commented on what our national game meant to the English. "The English treat Football as war and war as sport". Never a truer word said. If the average Englishman had a choice of winning a war against Argentina (as in the Falklands War of 1982), or beating Maradonna and co. in the 1986 World Cup Finals (which England lost 2-1), then the Falkland Islanders would be speaking Spanish today. What's the point of this thread? To explain why the word "soccer" is an obscenity to our ears, a chance for the Americans here to ask questions about, "the beautiful game" and an opportunity for fellow Englishmen to add there thoughts on what football means to them and it's effects on English society.