English hooligans will have to work hard to reclaim past glories.
England has a tough road ahead of them.
They finished a very disappointing second in their Euro Cup group (to soccer powerhouses Wales, no less).
And that means there’s a good chance they’ll end up playing Portugal in the next round. And Portugal of course have a player worth $200m on their side, although is true that Ronaldo is struggling to find his best form. He’s probably only operating about the $100-120m mark right now.
So I don’t think England will make it. They’ll bow out of the Euro.
Stop Press: Turns out that they're not playing Portugal in the knock-out round, they're up against the European giants, Iceland. Who, by the way, have a massive population of 300,000 and half of them are in France.
Doesn't matter – they're still going to lose!
And that will mean there will be blood on the streets. English fans will be pissed. I think, technically, according to the code of Hooliganism, once your team’s out of the comp, you’re not allowed to run riot any more.
(Maybe they’ll suddenly find that actually, a lot of the hooligans have Welsh ancestry).
It will be a disappointing end to a disappointing campaign for the English hooligans. For a long time they had the run of the streets outside major football competitions.
But this year they’ve had their arse handed to them by the Russians.
The Russians are, as history has shown us, as hard as nails. Apparently, soccer violence is a legitimate pastime over there. The government started cracking down on it, so soccer gangs organise brawls out in the woods. Participants work on their fitness and practice martial arts. Seriously.
And when I say the government started cracking down on it, it was more of a “why don’t you boys go and play over there where you’re not going to break anything.”
After the riot in Marseille, Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the KGB, blamed the French police: “A proper man comes as an amazement to them. They are used to seeing “men” at gay parades.”
Tactful.
This raises the question, why have English hooligans had a run of things for so long? These potato-powered militia wannabes surely have the upper hand on their doughy-white English adversaries. Why has it taken them so long to put points on the board in a major tournament?
Economics.
The Russian economy is advancing, and the European continent is becoming more integrated. Flights from Moscow to Marseille are a lot cheaper than they used to be, thanks to airline deregulation. And Moscovites are a lot richer than they used to be.
It is the dream of an integrated euro-area that has finally brought English and Russian hooligans into each other’s arms.
And perhaps this is why the euro dream has soured in England.
For a while there, things were awesome for the Brits. Even the poorest Pom entered the Euro area as rich man. And they treated Europe as their playground. They bought beachside properties in Spain, threw up on the white sands of Croatia, pissed on national monuments in Budapest.
And when the call for a riot went out, the Brits were there in numbers, because they could afford it. They could take a week off work and they could buy themselves the ticket.
Poor old Russian hooligans had to be content with sending a second-rate side of intellectuals and political prince-lings.
But not any more.
The euro area has evened the playing field – which is exactly what is was supposed to do. Russia is wealthy enough now to send an A-class team of hooligans. And Euro-area deregulation has opened up borders and made travel affordable to the Russian working class.
Suddenly the Brits are facing a motivated team of Russians with even more match experience under their belt, and in equal numbers.
And the Brits aren’t happy about it.
And so now we have the Brexit vote. Brits were happy to be part of Europe when it meant ultra-violence in Italy and buck’s nights in Romania. But as the poorer parts of Europe catch up, those benefits are being taken away.
And poorer poms have lost the joy of suddenly finding themselves rich and upper class when they step off the plane. They’ve could handle being oppressed and poor at home if they got to be rich and oppressive abroad. But not any longer.
So why are we in this bleeding Euro then? Is it just to give poorer countries a leg up, and take the whole continent forward? What do I get out of that?
Maybe they might take a look at their own economy – an economy (like ours) that functions best (for some) when there’s a large pool of relatively poorer folks competing for fewer and fewer jobs.
Maybe they might want to ask some questions of the people who set up and benefit from that system.
Maybe they might want to look at the sports administration bodies that have under-funded hooliganism for decades.
But I doubt it. When you construct your identity along national lines, then you can’t challenge anything “British”. Even if that is an exploitative monarchy and an exclusive upper class. You’re forced into loving it.
You construct a blind spot back home. The problem must be ‘out there’. It’s the Russian hooligans playing dirty. It’s the biased umpires. It’s the humid French air.
Sod it. Let’s get out of the Euro and put up a wall.
We’re not playing anymore.
Here's the update: I wrote this on Wednesday and this morning the dumb Brits decided to still prop up the European Illuminati and voted to stay in the fake construct of a united front. What does it all mean? Disaster postponed… But don't worry… it's coming!
Will England lose against the MIGHTY Iceland?
Should the Brits piss-off the French and Germans?
Is there any hope for the Union?
phb says
Interesting, your interpretation of soccer and the terrible street fighting of groups and gangs, all hooligans. One might ask: Are they retarded or brain amputated? Blood in the streets is not what we want, and any heated debate about winners and losers ending in beating up the opponent is falling back into animal behavior, Survival of the fittest. It is the opposite of sports and the old Greek idea of Olympic competition.
ron goddard says
none. the poms have lost there way since they sent colonials here in 1929.(perth/freo). but i can’t understand the russo/english stuff. in fact i can’t understand soccer..its over my head..field chess..as boring as watching grass grow.except when some overreactionary player scores an actual goal..hooray!! and the crowd goes bananas. still its the ‘world game’. god help us all!! cheers, ron
beanno says
I really do not think the poms have lost *their* (Ahem) way either. Oh, btw, you missed a century there Ron.
ron goddard says
hi jon, you could be on the right track with real estate, cos historically, when the share market(stock market whatever) crashes, say 50% next whenever, the money flies into real estate(if there is any money left after the goons pay back their bank loans that bought the overpriced shares in the first place).as you know p/e s are touching the moon in some quarters. oh..wow sub prime mortgages are up and running in good old u.s. of a.
no kidding! the race is on. when will they ever learn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wasn’t 2008 a good enough lesson? the only change is the terminology. they are now called second prime mortgages. wonderful. and the guys running it? the same yoyos who set up the whole thing prior to 2008. the derivitive debt is still over one quadrillion : US$1000 tn …i used my calculator then., and rising rapidly. this is a hangover from 2008 too when the dd was only US$598tn…er tn = trillion. onwards and upwards….to where? cheers, ron
Rudi K says
Loved your sarcasm.
Libertatem says
It seems common sense won.
Tom says
Jon, were you expressing some psychic foreboding regarding Brexit?
It seems that analysts who had been basing their forecasts on study of the social media were spot on. However, those trained in common garden variety analysis as taught in universities got it horribly wrong.
It seems that they assumed that Brits would vote the way their Political Parties told them to vote – the way that market analysis suggested would be better for their hip pockets.
Our Political Parties should take note of the power of social media, otherwise we Aussies might just as easily say, “A pox on both your houses” and vote for minor Parties which, being free of any fear of having to put their policies to the test, can espouse nice-sounding ideas; but like modern synthetic medicines, some of these, apparently ideal in concept, have some horrendous, unintended side effects – like Thalidomide, or relaxing border control.
If it were not so serious, it would be hilarious – or slightly funny perhaps.
The problem is that ideological bureaucrats and their elected puppets all have blinkers on, or heavily tinted glasses of blue or red, (to match their ties). However Aussies are renowned for ignoring the facade of BS, preferring to call a spade a ‘/*#ing! shovel’.
Viva Los Bogans!!!
Will the Brexit be the trigger for peeling away the scales from the eyes of real people, so that they will recognise the degree to which securities are currently grossly overvalued?
Torpedo Running says
The reason the Leave got up can be credited with thanks to the European Union. The Remain crowd had a 3 to 4% lead over the Leave. There was a component low percentage of those who were ” Undecided” Of those undecided were a number who had simply not been too concerned to give the question any thought, and they would have probably voted at the point to “leave things as they were” and vote to Remain. The high and mighty E. Union were on course to win when suddenly, in a vain, stupid and gormless move they made a statement that was designed to capture support from the “Undecided” The statement had the effect of galvanising a great number of ” Undecided” into action. The statement that decreed that if Britain left the E. Union they would never ever be allowed to return. This barefaced threat issued with brazen arrogance designed to bully had the opposite effect. Here for the ” “Undecided” was a clear signal that required no consideration of pro’s and con’s. The “Undecided” were incensed at this demand to vote for Brussels and bow to their masters and so they decided alright, a smack in the mouth. Let them go to to Hell. Now as the Union sits licking its wounds it faces other challenges as the sky fails to fall in, other countries are very likely to follow suit. It is not a case of “with the benefit of hindsight” If the arrogant pigs had said, ” If you leave and come to regret leaving we shall welcome you back with open arms into the family fold not only that but we shall assist where we are able to help you recover your losses incurred by leaving in any way that we can.” This would have induced a line of reasoning that would have enhanced the choice of leaving things as they areinstead of giving this a try, only to turn back and at a cost we don’t need. There is a simple example of an idiot trying to remove a large tyre from a wheel hub with a blow using a Sledge hammer from such a position it bounces back splitting his head and hopefully knocking some sense in to it. That is if he doesn’t kill himself. Lets hope this is the begging of the end of the E union, and the beginning of the end of the Communist United Nations Organisation to follow. The empty threats of trade being killed off rubbish being likened to a hysterical school girl being interfered with on a street corner