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A lot of the England fans have helped me get over it very quickly

Aye, TLDR Gemmill but at least it's off your chest now. You'll feel a lot better for sharing it.

I think to support the national side you need as a minimum to have some sense of national identity to the country you're supporting. I once had that, I don't have it at all now. The current England team and manager are a credit to the nation in all fairness. The fans, and not just this tiny minority people claim, are a fucking disgrace. Watching it on telly is therefore one thing but the reality in the stadium is different. Other can reconcile that perhaps but I can't. Also easy to not support them because they always ultimately disappoint. NUFC I do have a shared identity with and always will. At the moment, losses don't hurt and victories don't bring joy. But that could change. I prefer to think of the club as dormant rather than dead. But either way, its true to say fottball doesn't play a big part in my life at the moment.

Tyrone Mings: ‘Let’s end racism’ Harry Maguire:

Aye…

This feels like group therapy.

I'm not as bad watching Newcastle as I used to be - I've been going out with my lass for five years and I've told her that even the dark side she sees now when I watch a game when she's there is nothing compared to the old me which I think in a way is healthier mentally but I still yearn like fuck for the days when it was a matter of life and death and I was frankly mental about it

I've been thinking about this, and I honestly think I care more about watching England than Newcastle these days. And I say that as someone that won't bother with England outside of major tournaments and who sometimes finds out that England were even playing the day after the match took place, so I don't really give that much of a fuck about them. But what is the actual point of Newcastle United these days?

Not just Terry. Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Gerrard, Scholes, Rooney, Owen etc Theres only really Lampard, Milner and Neville from that generation of players who seem to have any common sense or social conscience. We've got a special bunch of players in the current crop who, despite being richer than ever, don't seem anywhere near as bothered about the bling or roasting lasses in the Hilton

I've just always assumed that Chinese mice have enormous penises.

That moment when we came out of Wembley after that match and the heavens opened is one of the darkest moments of my life - I even entertained for a moment the idea that there was a god and he was a cunt who hated us.

i remember feeling physically sick when man u spanked us in the charity shield. these days, it's just meh - oh look another hammering, fanks brucey

I think the Shaw goal was as excited as I’ve been for a goal in years tbh. I’ve always been a club before country type fan, but I did always watch England. I think it’s just that prior group of players was so immensely dislikable that it made it easy as fuck to shrug off their failures, Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinand, Owen, etc are just complete and utter insufferable up their own arse bellends who played international football purely for personal gain and let their club rivalry ruin what was on paper a good England side. In stark contrast it’s clear the current lot care, and they also seem a lot more conscious of their positions in society and the weight their word can carry when they speak up on behalf of people, so this one hurt and for me it still does. I think what makes it even harder is knowing in five or so weeks I have to also go back to watching Brucey and the boys, as much as I’ve criticized Southgate I like the bloke tbh I just want him to grow, I thoroughly dislike Bruce as a person and as a manager. I’d say somewhat similar to Gemmill I’ve almost switched to enjoying watching England more. Of course sections of the fan base are outright embarrassing fuckwits which can at times make it tough, and the bandwagon jumpers tend to be the brexit rugby crew in their relaxed fit jeans and Clarkson haircuts, but I honestly try to block all that out and just enjoy football for a change since Ashley and the Premier League as a whole has done about as much as they possibly can in 12 year to ruin it.

Totally. As Gemmill says, what's the point of Newcastle United these days? Well the point is, I still support them and at times apathy does kick in but they're still my club. I won't go anymore but I'll still watch them and will go back if he fucks off. England could score a winner in the final and it wouldn't be in the top 100 moments I've went 'radge' at a goal being scored. I'd be happy, I'd shout get in etc but it can never compare because ultimately it's who I am and it's the people you share it with. England can never give me that and never will although they can usually give me a government I didn't vote for. Politics and football shouldn't really mix but it just does and always has.

I still don't really support England though I can get invested emotionally occasionally like in Italia 90 or this time around. I suppose I've always associated it with the negatives like Newcastle players being ignored in favour of the Geoff Thomas's of this world and others just there because they play for London clubs as well as players I actively disliked like Rooney. That's before the No Surrender brigade are considered. I still think it doesn't compare with following NUFC (although I couldn't help thinking about this season and last under Bruce on Sunday night) - I remember having a conversation with someone at work after France 98 where they asked if "normal" football compared with watching England and I replied that she should think of how she felt watching the Argentina game and multiply that by 38 times a year - she asked how we could cope and I think my reply was "alcohol".

Isn’t that why he’s unsure how many kids he has?

Tyrone Mings is a double good cunt and puts it far better than I ever could...

Pure Yorkshire

You’ve just reminded me - we had a parking ticket when we got back to the car near Wembley too

Aye, all of that. And then we got pulled over by the police in North Yorkshire in the dead of night because my dad, and I quote, "wasn't driving equidistantly between the lines".

I got fucking soaked. Then stuck in a traffic jam for ages due to the Oasis concert at Knebworth. The faux-hard Manc cunts

Well I'm going stir crazy stuck at home (worse at the moment with my daughter isolating which means we're all stuck in effectively). I'd fucking love 2 hours commute every day to get away from my family.

Get some lemon juice on a lateral flow and take that time off, baby. We’re the ones who have had to go into work every day for 18 months with this cunt flying about, we deserve it

Pardew’s tenure was really big for me in that respect, I remember before him a 3-0 or 4-0 loss felt like a complete fucking hammering, I would be absolutely gutted and embarrassed we got smacked like that, but he seemed to lose matches by those score lines or worse regularly enough that they started to feel like a 2-0 or narrow loss. We’ve had some right plums as manager under Ashley mind

it's still newcastle first for me too, but can you remember the last time a newcastle result really hurt? a bad result in a big game used to linger at the back of my mind for days after the match. these days, it's met with a shrug of the shoulders

It’s a zombie club. Tragic really, what ashley has done

Watching England is probably my glimpse into the mind of a glory hunting fan of the usual suspects. It's nice when you're winning but lacks the intensity of a late winner for your club but on the bright side it's dead easy to brush off when England get beat helped, as Alex says, by a certain section of the England fan base as well as the tabloids.

Yeah, they better watch out if they make even the tiniest indiscretion. Meanwhile the bloke running the country won’t even say how many kids he has (on top of everything else)

Can you imagine John Terry being captain of these lads? I think we can judge how important this issue is for the very fuckers who actually wanted a culture war by their reaction to being 5 nil down v a bunch of kids from council estates in the actual culture war The tabloids will have received their instructions by now though...unleash hell...again...

Barney Ronay on the money https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/12/england-the-country-not-the-football-team-needs-to-take-a-look-at-itself

This is an astonishing political generation of sportsmen

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gb-news-andrew-neil-viewing-figures-welsh-language-show-paw-patrol-b942969.html?__twitter_impression=true 😂

Yeah, I don’t think we should sack him or anything. I think like you say he deserves the 2022 WC, but I really think he has to show improvement as imo there’s some real issues with his game day team management that ultimately cost us after we got away with it a little earlier in the tournament through the strength of our players. Like KD just said I think this squad is becoming a premier side at the international level, with most of the squad playing at the highest levels of the club game and Southgate needs to grow with the side and allow them to start to assert pressure of their own rather than just backing off a shying a little from teams based upon name. I rate the Italian side, I did before the tournament but I don’t think they were some Goliath that we should have feared and respected them to the degree we seemed to in the second half, having so little possession against them and doing nothing to try and remedy it was my biggest complaint. I get the ‘he made the final doing it this way’ defence but I think we also have room to criticize him as I really do think we didn’t assert ourselves on the tournament like the squad likely can and relied on being hard to beat, I take your point regarding France but I’d also say that the players France have at their disposal lend better to that. Kante and Matuidi are/were the premier defensive mids in the game, Varane is arguably the best CB around, with Pavard, Hernandez etc all leading in their positions. On the flip side our strength is our attack and Southgate shied away from that to try and make us hard to break down, it’s a viable enough tactic and it’s admirable he stuck to his guns but he deserves criticism when it’s ultimately what cost us. I think ultimately I’m at the point where I commend him for everything he’s done, and I really do think he’s done a good job, but he also deserves criticism as we’re moving away from being an ‘underdog’ type team (I know we have the resources underdogs don’t but I mean more in terms of the ability of the players he had in 2018) into being a team that can genuinely challenge for tournaments, and with that transition he has to also grow and allow the team a platform to perform, having basically 1 shot and 29% possession over 90 minutes in what was really a home fixture isn’t the platform. Regarding Kalvin Phillips we’ll have to agree to disagree, I saw nothing to suggest he’s good enough in this tournament for him to be a starter in a squad pushing like we seem to want to do, I think he got in because Henderson was coming back from injury and he just did enough for Southgate to keep picking him but we absolutely need more there or we’re going to keep struggling when we come up against sides with better CM pairings like Italy had. Hopefully Bellingham keeps up his emergence and Southgate puts faith in him like he did with Saka, as Bellingham is by far and away a better player than Phillips.

Are these still available?

Yorkshire’s lovely. It’s just the locals who spoil it

I guess I’m lucky in not detesting my lass and the kids. Not entirely sure the feeling’s mutual though

Apathy can't help but kick in under Ashley and I try to shrug off defeats now probably better than I used to but it's still my team and pisses me off like England couldn't after a defeat. I will say, I far prefer watching international tournaments than the premier League by a mile. I just don't get emotionally invested in it, the Italy Belgium game was a joy to watch as was the Italy Spain game.

Our rates are x1.33 or x1.5 on a Sunday or bank holiday. If you're desperate your desperate or if you've known no different I can understand but I wouldn't give up my own time for that rate. This has actually reminded me of CT once railing against the idea of shift allowances in the workplace which gave me a laugh at the time.

steve bruce.

Aye, teams in the Championship have a bit of money these days tbf

I'm not even sure if this bloke is racist or just really shit at making edgy jokes. Either way comedy clubs have been telling him he's no longer welcome to perform at their venues all day and his management has dumped him.

6 year contract is less about how long he'll be here and more about raising his price, surely?

I hope I’m wrong, I genuinely do but I’m not convinced his decisions and mistakes are ones he will learn from. He clearly favors Saka, Mount, Phillips to clearly better players (I think Saka and Mount are both good players fwiw, I just think he has more talented options, I also think Mount was poor all tournament but continued to be selected due to Southgates favoring of him as he supposedly tracks back more than Foden etc). I stand by that I think he’d be better suited as an assistant manager, I just think he tends to miss with a lot of his subs or team selections and criticism of it is being hushed since we reached the final, a final which was reached at times through brilliance from players he shunted to the side in favor of industry. My main worry is that it was similar to the Croatia SF loss in 2018, we went up early and progressively sat further and further back and rather than make changes to alleviate pressure he just waited. He didn’t learn from that to me, despite having a far more talented and deeper squad. I’m not saying he should have just thrown caution to the wind and threw on attackers but he had a ton of options like swap out Trippier for Henderson so we could have a midfield 3 and try to hold possession for a bit as we were continually out of sorts 30 yards from our goal all second half, or throw on Sancho/Rashford when Bonucci and Chiellini were camped out on halfway to stretch the field and alleviate the pressure that way. We can say it’s hindsight but honestly most people watching recognized changes had to be made and he sat on them. I’m more than willing to praise him btw, he’s done an excellent job getting the squad to where it is now, clearly his man management skills are brilliant as he’s keeping the squad happy despite the players noted above not playing much. I just see a manager that isn’t great at game day decisions and continually makes odd/overly conservative choices when he doesn’t need to and I really fear it’s not something he will learn from so we will waste chances for a genuinely talented and confident crop of players to fulfill their potential just to keep a nice bloke that has done very well but is arguably starting to hold back the squad a little. Hopefully it’s harsh and he goes on to win us things, not that it’s a must as I know it’s extremely hard to win but to have chances like this one and basically just whiff it and go out fairly meekly is utterly disappointing isn’t really good enough. It’s all moot anyway, he will be manager going forward I just personally have reservations about his ability to grow with this squad. I think he maximized the potential of the team in the WC but is holding back the potential of this current side. Want to add, I thought Declan Rice was quality yesterday but I absolutely don’t understand the plaudits Kalvin Phillips gets, hopefully Bellingham continues his trajectory and we see him take place over the severely limited Phillips.

Even that tiger skin rug is gasping for fresh air, being right next to that stinking tramp.

The kids will all be hungover tbf

Yup. Addiotnally, I think Walker and Henderson would have been better Penalty takers than Sterling and Mount. Either way, this young England team got to the final of the Euros and only lost to a very good Italian side on penalties. Danny Baker and his ilk who were demanding they threw away everything that got them there and attack with abandon are morons. Sure, Southgate could have made substitutions earlier, but he and the young England side can be proud of their performance.

Rashford replaced Walker. Not sure playing a striker at RB for 10mins would have been a good idea. Their keeper is fucking massive. They were always going to have the advantage in a penalty shootout. We should have chucked our attackers on in extra time and gone for it. Sancho and Rashford hammering them down the wings. We are all experts in hindsight anyway

It seemed like he didn’t believe that you were the best side in the tournament. Throughout you were set up not to lose. Southgate seemed more concerned with stopping the opposition rather than having the confidence to go out and cause them problems. It’s hard to knock him too much seeing as he got you to your first final in 55 years and you were never outclassed but it would have been nice to see you take the game to Italy and focus more on unnerving them with your attacking talent.

FYI, ewerk is Irish