Great Britain vs. France

Here in Britain, you find us all in the deepest of mourning.

I say all, because, suddenly and for no reason I can quite put my finger on, the normally extremely nationalistic Welsh and Scots have suddenly taken to supporting the England soccer team as the Euro 2004 championships begin.

If Euro 2004 means nothing to you, then let me help. This is the world's second biggest international soccer competition, and it's just begun in Portugal. It is supposedly EUROPEAN, although, strangely, Russia and Latvia are playing, but never mind.

Because we're talking about soccer … where if we win a game there are riots in the streets of our major towns … and if we lose, the same thing happens, only the rioters smile more. So, losing really isn't an option and losing against the French. Well, as they say in South London, we have previous with the French.

France invaded us in 1066 and we returned the compliment, well, on an annual basis, from 1336 onwards. So, on Sunday night, the English soccer team played France. And, at the same time, coincidentally, the results of the elections to the European Parliament were announced. One hundred 55 million voters in 25 countries and things in Britain did not go as the Government planned. The mainstream political parties' results slumped in favour of a newcomer, one that campaigned on a simple platform, "get Britain out of the European Union". I suspect that the success of the United Kingdom Independence Party was at least partly the result of the unpopularity here of our Prime Minister Tony Blair, but it also chimes with the traditional mistrust the British have for anything European.

Which brings us back to Sunday night's soccer match against France. We lost. The English national team was defeated by the French national team by two goals to one. It's a national catastrophe, comparable to that day back in 1972 at the Munich Olympics when your basketball team lost in the final to the Soviet Union.

Here, flags are at half mast, the banks are closed and we're almost at the stage of asking Margaret Thatcher to compose a morale-boosting eulogy. The worst thing about losing the match was that not only did the French team play better … they didn't even cheat.

By Simon Bates