When England are playing well:

EN-GER-LAND
when England are disappointing: en-guh-land.

For my part I only ever support England once Wales have been knocked out of the major tournaments i.e.always by the start of the the tournament proper. This means I miss out on the plunging all consuming lows that reach most international supporters. The closest I have ever come to it was when Wales were knocked out by Russia in the play-offs a couple of years back. Knocked out by Russia. There could be a mini-trend developing here.

Of course I support England and Wales jointly in the cricket as they have the same team, and only ever support Wales in the rugby. This is because English rugby players strike me as insufferable gits, and the Welsh are mostly all good comprehensive school lads, like myself.

What does all this prove? Other than that I am a bit of bi-partisan cunt. That nationality is a movable feast of course, like political or sexual persuasion. Oddly enough nationality is more flexible than team loyalty. While no-one really minds if I'm supporting England or Wales, or perversely both, or even if I become Uruguayan. But if I were to switch alliegances from Everton to say, Man U, that would mark me out as some kind of weird traitor.

Amazingly these kind of things do happen. I once met a lifelong Millwall fan who swapped sides. To Chelsea. "Millwall" he said, "were too boring." And that they were "painful to watch". Everyone he made the mistake of telling about this were aghast. General concensus was that if someone stuck his head on a pole in tower bridge it would be no bad thing (he was not just a footballing turncoat but also worked in IT). Knowing Millwall fans maybe someone already has.