Mantas 3 Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 In the tradition of the Ashes, it's on again. England has laid down the chalange with some bold statements. Andy Burnham, the UK's culture secretary, landed the first strike by claiming the Beijing games which starts on Friday would usher in a "glorious" sporting era for the country. He predicted Team GB would bring home as many as 41 medals and could overtake Australia, England's deadliest foes on the cricket pitch and Ashes rivals for more than a century, in the final table. At the last Olympics in Athens, Britain finished tenth with 30 medals while Australia were fourth with 49. "Other countries and old rivals like Australia now look to us as a country that got serious about sport and are saying they are in danger of falling behind team GB in the medal table," Mr Burnham boasted. Gerry Sutcliffe, Britain's sports minister, has weighed in by promising to wear an Australian sports shirt in public if the British team win fewer medals than their rivals Down Under at the Games. "It might mean me having to wear an Australian rugby league shirt at Old Trafford, which could be dangerous, but it's all healthy fun," he said. Kate Ellis, Australia's sport minister, has agreed to his wager and pledged to accept the same public humiliation if her home country wins fewer medals. But she hit back by claiming British athletes could crumble under the pressure placed on them by the Government. "We will soon find out within a few days whether their athletes can indeed hack this sort of pressure because we've seen from both British sportsman and women in the past that they've been known to choke under the pressure when up against the Aussies." She added: "I'm not sure that they're ready to pip us just yet - we'll see." Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 They'll crack. Remember how much hope was pinned on Henman in the tennis for all those years, and nothing... Not to mention the Ashes, other than that anomaly a few years back Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Ummm....just a small point chaps.....Team GB does not = England Englands cricket team is nothing to do with GB, it represents only our near neighbours in the south thankyou. Link to post Share on other sites
kokodoko 67 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 The rest of GB dont even like pommies.. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 16, 2008 Author Share Posted August 16, 2008 Just run us through the set up TB. The UK=? Great Britain=? England=? It seems a bit bizare that you select your national identity based on which ever sport your playing at the time. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Mantas, I don't. I'm Scottish first and British second. The fact that we are a political union means that officially we are all British, but in reality most people would identify with their individual nation of birth. Its internationally that people say Britain to mean England, this is plain wrong, and tut tut Mantas, Aussies really should know better considering the demographics of your founding fathers Britain is not the same as England. England is one component nation of GB as is Scotland and as is Wales Great Britain is the political Union of...... Scotland, England and Wales. United Kingdom is the political union of...... Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland In the Olympics and athletics in general (unless its the nonentity that is the commonwealth games) we compete as a combined team, Team GB For mostly every other sport we compete as our individual nations, that means that when England is playing cricket, then they are representative ONLY of England (not scotland and Wales etc). Scotland has its own individual teams for each various sport. England is simply England. Sorry for the lecture Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 so poms are Brit or englisher? Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 16, 2008 Author Share Posted August 16, 2008 Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver Mantas, I don't. I'm Scottish first and British second. The fact that we are a political union means that officially we are all British, but in reality most people would identify with their individual nation of birth. Its internationally that people say Britain to mean England, this is plain wrong, and tut tut Mantas, Aussies really should know better considering the demographics of your founding fathers Britain is not the same as England. England is one component nation of GB as is Scotland and as is Wales Great Britain is the political Union of...... Scotland, England and Wales. United Kingdom is the political union of...... Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland In the Olympics and athletics in general (unless its the nonentity that is the commonwealth games) we compete as a combined team, Team GB For mostly every other sport we compete as our individual nations, that means that when England is playing cricket, then they are representative ONLY of England (not scotland and Wales etc). Scotland has its own individual teams for each various sport. England is simply England. Sorry for the lecture So... if you play soccer at the world cup in South korea, you represent England. If you play soccer at the olympics in Beijing, you represent Great Britain. And to get to either venues, you use you United Kingdom passport. Simple really, don't know how I got confused Moving on. Australia 22 Great Britain 7 Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Actually, the English cricket team represents England AND Wales;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_cricket_team Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 16, 2008 Author Share Posted August 16, 2008 And while we are at it. Why is the prince of England callled the Price of Wales. Australia 25 Great Britain 12 Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Stop trying to work out the intricacies of the brit/UK/GB/Eng/Scot/Wales/Ireland mess! You should know better, Mantas. They are so messed up they don't even know, how is the rest of the world supposed to understand when they cannot even explain it?? Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 what the hell is soccer??? It's football Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 football is something completely different to me Thursday So soccer is what I will call it. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Originally Posted By: Mantas Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver Sorry for the lecture So... if you play soccer at the world cup in South korea, you represent England. If you play soccer at the olympics in Beijing, you represent Great Britain. And to get to either venues, you use you United Kingdom passport. Simple really, don't know how I got confused Moving on. Australia 22 Great Britain 7 Hahaha Mantas, but NO. England played in the World Cup but Scotland didn't qualify, I don't want England to win at any sport. In the World Cup England represents ONLY England, very few Scots (if any ) support England when they play. For the majority of people, we support the team that england plays! So in the world cup I'm Scottish and support Scotland, if we don't qualify then I do not support England, its exactly the opposite. We don't play "soccer" at the Olympics as there is no such thing as a Great Britain football team. For the Olympics we enter a combined team under the banner Team GB, but there is no football team. If that were to happen then there would be pressure to enter a Team GB football team into the World Cup and that is something which no one in Scotland or Wales wants. We use a UK passport to travel What many people don't seem to realise is that we are rivals (England and Scotland) and from the smaller country's perspective (Scotland) we don't support England, we like to see them lose. As for the England Cricket team also representing Wales, I will take your word on that as I know squat about cricket, but politically, England and Wales are closer than Scotland and England. Ever since the Union in 1707 (?) Scotland retained different governing powers such as laws, education. Recently Scotland and Wales have been given devolved governments, giving them the power to govern independently than from London, but before this, when laws were passed in the Houses of Parliament, generally the laws would initially be valid only in England and Wales and NOT Scotland. For those laws to be valid in Scotland would require some other process involving the Scottish Office, which was effectively the Scottish Government in London Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Keep it up TB We all realize the rivalry between Scotland and England, nay bother. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 haha....yeah I go on a bit about it, but you gotta educate the masses!!! Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 17, 2008 Author Share Posted August 17, 2008 >So... if you play soccer at the world cup in South korea, you represent England. < TB. I didn't mean YOU as in you Scotsman, I meant YOU Englishman (if you were indeed an Englishman). I'm well aware of the Great Wall of Scotland, but thanks for the lesson anyway. enough of this Australia 29 Great Britain 19 GB ahead in the tally though Great britain 9 gold Australia 8 gold Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 ok Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 18, 2008 Author Share Posted August 18, 2008 Autralia now 3rd on the medal tally behind China and the US GB 4th. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 OK Pomms well infront now and aren't they letting us know about it. After 20 years in the sporting wilderness they are back up where a nation of 60 million should be. It seems a bit wierd that the only thing they are happy about is they have more medals than Australia. Great Britain 16 gold 36 total Australia 11 gold 35 total Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Nah, not weird at all after all the crap we have given them over the years! Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Is there a lot of coverage in the press about GB having more than Aus? I haven't seen or read anything about that, but I'm only going on the internet sites of the UK press. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 Front page of some papers in the UK.. It's expected I suppose. It will be interesting to see if they maintain the rage after London 2012, or will they resort back to their former poor form. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 they should be headlining about the perfect position to be licking bush ass Link to post Share on other sites
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