Does anybody else feel like the lack of pride to be english and represtent and cheer on your country is becoming a major factor in the downfall of english rugby league? being abroad people seem alot more patriotic... reading the british origin game feels like nobody cares about the previous history and rivalry between lancashire yorkshire... where as in Aus nsw v queensland is almost a family wrecker on origin day...

Just would like to know what peoples opinions are on this?

(and i dont mean because there is 3 none full english players in the team)

At least we will beat the Welsh.....................won't we?

Proud to be English & British tatooed to prove it. Followed England football all over Europe and gone to various world cups. But international RL has become a joke and the Rangi Chase inclusion has topped it off for me. God save our Queen is my national anthem but england RL doesn't seem like my team

I really don't blame you, before moving over here i felt the same, sometimes watching the internationals i was hoping and cheering for Aus to put a big score on england. But since moving here and being around other nationalities i really want england to give me something to be proud of.

I also think thats the big point in rugby league people love the club alot more than there country and this is pulling in low attendences compared to union game where the league clubs pull in crap attendences.

Regarding rangi chase i dont know him personaly so i dont know how much he feels english but if he is wanting to live out the rest of hes life in england and sing the national anthem and give he's all to england i think he is as english as the rest of us minus the accent haha.

I would class myself as British.

I'm glad I was born in England rather than a bunch of other countries. Wouldn't say "proud" though, I just happened to be born here by chance.
I would like it if we got a new national anthem though. Something less to do with god and the Queen, and more about our country.

Our national team has suffered since we dropped the GB moniker. Test matches and tours were the mainstay of National pride even when we lost we were still proud. The lion on the shirt made you feel proud which the silly amateurish England badge could never do. Try watching the 1988 3rd test v The kangaroos on Utoob. That's what national pride was all about.

I tend to find that my degree of pride in being English tends to drop when there's a Tory government. However, in rugby terms, I'll still be cheering for an underdog win by our boys.

From one of the most patriotic blokes going i've turned into someone that couldn't care less about our national teams anymore. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else but I just feel this country has been hijacked in so many ways i'm no longer proud to be English. Club rugby gets my blood pumping but international matches are something i'll watch without getting too excited. As a kid i can remember standing on the terraces at Headingley for the deciding test against the Aussies in 1978 and feeling so excited i couldn't stop going to the loo, the only thing that would make me rush to the loo during an England game now would be if the old prostate gland started playing up.

Did Nick Griffin start this thread?

Is that the type of person it takes to start a "proud to be English" thread?

Anyhoo, the OP should use a capital "E" really. That's my take-away from it all.

I'm proud to be English.

Your barking up the wrong tree completely as i am half portugues and have a filipino girl friend so would hardly say i am up to the requirments to start a rugby league bnp organisation wouldn't you even tho its none of your business... not every statement what says "british" should be classed as your a racist.

I am simply saying it feels like not many people care that this england team look set to fail AGAIN, and the only thing i can see what explains this is that people dont seem to care about the iternational rugby as half as much they do there own club.

Just reading some of the posts and this shows how much people have lost there love for england rugby league. I couldn't care less if your from pakistan or poland if you count england as your home and are supporting your adopted home as the country represnting you and your family YOUR ENGLISH TO ME.

The big problem Rightly or wrongly is people just do not support ENGLAND RL as proudly and commited as much they do there own club.... If this was addressed we could easily fill wembley and it would look great for rugby league... I cant help think this is an oppertunity missed as RU has just shown its self up to the world.

Only a little joke bud.



That's the reason.

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."

With this i couldn't agree more and its shows so much here as an english person will get paid twice as much as an indian in the uae and differential treatment generally in a better way.

Many fans clubs will feel like they fail on a yearly bases and will still turn up cheer on there club and feel passion for them, same for england ladyboys playing football they fail but never seem to lose there passionate supporters...

Its just very sad that the same people who care about rugby league and put so much time and effort to support there clubs cant transition that to country for what ever reasons and maybe it is the amount of failure or its rfl people dont have faith in but for what ever reason its the international stage our players are looking to perform on.

Well said. There are a lot of people who don't support the national side in RL. Personally, every year at around this time I get a feeling of pride and genuinely get it in my head (don't laugh) that we can beat the Aussies and the Kiwis.

I'm sure come the end of November I will be proved wrong but I'm going to enjoy the next few weeks regardless.

well you only have to look at the kiwis to show anything can happen on the day its hardly like england rl is a team full no abilty rugby players is it, fans cant really influence the on field performance but they can there attitudes and this will effect the tournement more than england getting rolled over every match bar wales.

This is the first time i have felt this passionate about england maybe its due to the fact england ru has just failed or maybe because i am in another countrie with alot of nationalities and this makes me feel more pride in england i don't know but i know if every rl fan felt this we could show england isn't an amerturish competition...

listening to the aussie commentators all year has ed me off as much as anything they pay no attention to internationals just well this is an origin class player not this a kangaroo player,, the fact they hold an in country origin seriers in great regard than the internationals is wrong

I think that because England players come from just a handful of teams the interest has been diluted throughout the wider Rugby League fanbase. The likes of swinton,Hunslet and other teams that used to regularly supply international players probably switch off a llittle bit because they feel alienated from the game at the top level. Other sports such as cricket struggle to generate the same patriotic fervour due to half the team being South Africans. As for the England football team, do the likes of Ashley Cole etc really make you want to support the English team? I'm also being turned off from international Rugby League because of the way some players and high ranking figures tell us domestic fixtures should be cut so the players can play more international games to become more "competitive" against the Aussies. I'm afraid our infatuation with the Aussies is becoming a bit obsessive, it's certainly not the be all and end all some of the so called experts seem to believe. I'd happily cut this four nations rubbish in exchange for proper tours like the Aussies and Kiwis used to take part in. Sadly TV rights and financial aspects will ensure it never happens again.

No idea what it is, but I struggle to have the same passion for internationals (both rugby and football). Maybe I generate too much into following Cas & LUFC. I'm going to Wembley on the 5th & I kind of feel like its a friendly, there just isn't much excitement. lets say its 18-18 going in to the last 10, of course I'll want England to win, but i wouldn't be absolutely bricking it as I would be if Cas were in that position.

Fed up of people banging on 'blah blah Rangi Chase isn't English, Jack Reed's not english'

Look at the England cricket team!! Kevin Petersen, Jonathan Trott, Adil Rashid, Ravi Bopara, Eion Morgan, Craig Kieswetter etc etc - I didn't hear people saying 'yeah well we've won the ashes but I don't care because half of em aren't english'

Exactly - after all, what's the definition of English? To take me as an example, I was born in North London, my mother was Australian and I've Welsh, Irish and Belgium in my ancestry.

I don't think the lack of support for England RL has anything to do with patriotism really. English RL has had a long and illustrious history of being very parochial. Folk will say the RFL have ruined it for them or Rangi Chase has or there was 'pride' in the GB jersey, but not the England one or whatever. There is a long list of reasons why folk will say they don't get excited by or follow England and none of them are really true. Take for instance the argument that folk won't support the national team because they don't like what the RFL and the backroom staff have done with it. Well, I don't really like how Wakefield Trinity is and has been run and aren't over the moon about the recruitment, but I'm not going to stop supporting them. I would imagine the same is true for most other fans.

The reason why we don't seem to get excited about the national team playing is because historically RL fans have never really taken to the national side. Aside from the 90's when interest really picked up, if you look back in time at attendances and compare them to other show piece matches you see there has never been the same level of interest.

Parochialism is the main issue. Folk support clubs far more passionately because the clubs are integral to the communities they exist in, they're the backbone of the comunity. And, I'd also argue that there is little mobility in and out of some of these communities, which galvanises more strongly the sense of community identity. If your community is your world, then your nation becomes foreign.

I suppose the other issue to do with parochialism is a much more historic one, one that goes back to when the Northern Union split from the Rugby Football Union. At that time the North was pretty much a different country to the South. There wasn't just minor differences in demographics, but huge chasms of difference in governance, culture and language. The Northern clubs quest for independence from the RFU comes from the differences between the two regions and also the desire of many Northern towns and cities for autonomy from London. This as well galvanises the sense of community and regional identity. Therefore, in a sense if you embrace a national team, you're embracing the South and you're embracing London, which means, in a way, you're denying your sense of local and regional identity and you're denying your sense of autonomy.

I am proud first & foremost to be a Northerner, will support any national side that has Northerners in the team.

Without a doubt "Land of Hope and Glory" should be the national anthem. That, or "Rule Brittania".....God save the queen is dated now.