But don’t you now play in all white too?

I wasn’t hurling abuse at you, merely debating. I don’t really disagree with most of what you are saying, I just object to the singling out of Arsenal Football Club. It isn’t just an Arsenal problem it is one which affects every level of the profesional game. Incidently Arsenal were not the first club to field an all foreign XI as Liverpool did so in the mid 1980’s (albeit with a couple of Irishmen from Lancashire!) as did Chelsea in the early 2000’s. The problem is that it isn’t an issue which can be solved by one club alone or indeed the English clubs unilaterally, it can only happen if and when all clubs worldwide agree to a voluntery system of self regulation. To impose something on to clubs will only lead to legal challenges I fear, as happened with the Bosman case. David has raised the point about Michel Platini’s idea which would see clubs limited to five players who aren’t home grown playing for all clubs in Europe, but as he points out it will probably never happen for the reasons outlined above. There are also a couple of other problems with this idea as “home grown” means a player who has come through the youth system at a club who isn’t neccesarily English. As things stand a club can recruit a player under 16 from anywhere in Europe but not from more than 100 miles away in England. Arsenal or Spurs could quite legally recruit a 13 year old starlet from Warsaw but would be unable to do the same with a kid from Walsall! The other issue would be that it is quite conceivable for a local lad to be brought through as a “home grown” player only for them to decide to opt to play for another country when the time comes, an example of which you will see tonight when an Arsenal supporting Walthamstow lad is likely to play against Germany.

There is an awful lot which the FA can do to improve the national side and install the same sort of pride in the players which is evident in countries like Croatia and Scotland. The first thing would be to change their area of jurisdiction. At the moment they are the administrators of football in England, Cornwall, Guernsey, Jersey and Man aswell as having Welsh clubs who are affiliated to them and who compete in their competitions. They should be re-named “The English FA” and have jurisdiction over football in England only. The clubs from outside England should be asked to politely leave and join their own FA’s competitions (in the case of Wales) or form their own national associations. Secondly, the “national” anthem. How can you expect players to be fired up to give their all for England when they are asked to stand for a song which doesn’t even mention the country for whom they are being asked to give 100% for? Thirdly, perhaps this is just a personal bug-bear, but why do we play in white and BLUE? Where is the blue in the English flag? Shouldn’t we play in all white trimmed with red as the Rugby team does? Finally, out of the FA’s control I know but they could ask for the media to start speaking of the national teams (in all sports not just football) as though they were just that, THE NATIONAL TEAM. In every other country in the World the national media refer to their national teams as WE or OUR and their players and supporters as Irish footballers, American athletes, Australian cricketers, Dutch fans etc.etc. It is only in England where the (British) “national” media consistently avoid speaking of English teams, players or supporters whilst refering to them as “they” rather than thinking of themselves as part of the same national community and getting behind them too. Perhaps when the day comes that an England team stands and belts out “Jerusalem” playing for a truely English team (rather than a UK/Crown Dependencies minus Scotland, Wales and NI one as is the de-facto case now) with an English media fully behind the team of eleven ENGLISHMEN rather than “England players” and without grudging analysis from a surley Scot working for a British “national” broadcaster, then we may have a chance of getting the same sort of pride in representing England as we presently see with Croatia, Germany, Australia and indeed most other nations around the World. I for one will have a tear in my eye should that ever happen in my lifetime.

Of course plenty of Cornish people support the English Football and Rugby teams because after all we are good sports, but imagine if we were given true national teams for both these sports.

Scottish and Irish players would be counted as ‘foreign’ in this context. But the case of Wales would be ambiguous, as the English league includes some Welsh teams: another instance like those I discuss, in fact, where England and Wales are more closely integrated than are England, Scotland and Ireland.

Arsenal epitomises all that is wrong with English sport and indeed with England itself. Arsenal makes xenophobia a virtue.

I have followed horseracing for over 30 years and although we had our fair share of Irish jockeys in the past an English jockey winning a Group 1 race is becoming as rare as rocking horse manure.

Nowhere else have foreigners been allowed to take over sport as much as they have in England. In France there are French jockeys, in Germany, German and so on. None of these countries would allow such dominance of foreigners, legally or otherwise.

The thing about the English, post WW 2, is that you make a rule and you’ll end up with some officious prat adhering to it with any recourse to common sense.

I don’t care any longer about abuse being hurled my way, such as being called a bigot or xenophobe. Firstly because foreigners invented both (I suspect Scots), and secondly in “multicultural” Br*tain diversity actually means exclusivity with the English being the ones excluded. Except of course it is to abuse and discriminate against them.

So I’m no longer averse to hurling a bit of abuse about myself these days.

To reiterate, anybody who supports Arsenal (and I concede all other Premiership teams) must be a prize prat. It is they who are leading us to a Euro-league, which again will be full of foreigners, and making sure that real international (that is between countries) will die.

All in the name of globalism and so-called free trade. Like I said xenophobia is really a virtue and will in fact be the saving of the world.

True nationalism means looking after your own people and country while refraining from interfering in another’s. The totalitarian empire builders like Barroso and Gordon Brown have a compulsion to interfere in other countries.

I do agree that in the future the English should concentrate on their players. They have produced thousands of great players, but only one World Cup (at home, with built-in refs etc.. Time to focus on your own guys, you have the talent. Only Alf Ramsey understood what an English TEAM had to be. Take note of your own history and apply to today!