England and the World Cup: The saga continues...

Optimism. Hope. Positivity. These are words which you wouldn't normally associate with the English world of national sport. Football and Rugby World Cups as well as the Olympics come round every 4 years, with the Euro's to fill in the footballing void in between. The Ashes take up the odd summer. The Six Nations happens at the beginning of each year; Wimbledon every summer. All of these events in the annual sporting calender lead to an overwhelming sense of national pride and belief that, the small land we call home, England, could do the unthinkable and win something! The sense of sporting positivism surrounding English sport around these times is sometimes enough to make you feel a bit wheezy. The banners, the patriotism, the flags all come out to play. God Save The Queen bellows from the rooftops. We unite as a nation under one banner, one belief, one hope that this could be our year for sporting success. We boast the best football league in the world, yet a lot of our teams strongly rely on foreign imports to boost their teams prestige and league status. We boast a top 4 rugby team, but have ex-Samoans, New Zealanders and South Africans playing in our starting line up. We 'boast' a top tier national cricket team, of which we poached a South African batsman. Even in Wimbledon, when Murray is winning he is British and the whole nation is behind him, yet, when he loses he is immediately ousted as being Scottish. Yes we have had success in our time as a sporting nation. The 2003 Rugby World Cup and dare I say it, the 1966 Football World Cup. In 2014, we still hark back to that 1966 victory over West Germany, a victory gained 48 years ago! Is it our year to win the World Cup? Who knows. Is the realism marred by blind optimism? If you believe in coincidences, then the history of who won trophies in 1966 matches with the winners so far this year.

Germany. Goal Line Technology. Despair.

Five words that epitomized England's last outing of the football kind at the World Cup in 2010.

There is a nation behind the England team this summer, whether it be in blind optimism or as a hopeful future development squad. Either way, this summer will be one of the most experimental times in England's sporting history. With young, inexperienced sportsmen playing in both the World Cup in Brazil, and in the test matches against the All Blacks down in New Zealand, if there was every going to be a summer of hope and belief, then this is it! Now go out there and do us all proud boys. Win or lose, just give it your all and the nation as a whole will be proud. Just don't give up without a fight.




Blind optimism, I could get used to that.

Come on England.

Jonathan Whitehead