The fact is the English haven't been listening for years

Rob Bonnet

I don't specifically mean the tireless Alec McGivan and his committed team of footballing knights (although Mr Warner clearly does!).

I mean you and me, the English nation. (Forgive me if I've cast you wrongly!).

Xenophobic

Insular, complacent, xenophobic - as the world moves on, we've been looking away, turning a deaf ear and quibbling about the euro or foreigners in the Premier League.

And we wonder why we're so friendless and without respect?

The Charleroi yobbo was a coarse caricature of the Englishman abroad, but he's been around for 30 years in some beer-bellied shape or form.

Alec McGivan has been leading the 2006 campaign

And he doesn't need a football tournament to roar his racism or break a shop window. Ask the bar-owners of Benidorm or Ibiza.

Without the brutal, violent excess, English football was similarly brainless at Euro 2000.

Plenty of huff-and-puff. Loadsapassion a la "En-ger-land, and St George".

But it's no good Tony Adams quoting Henry V when the opposition are equipped with the speed and accuracy of the crossbow and all we've got is a battering ram in an open field.

Sneering

And when we actually won, popular culture celebrated with sneering, wrist-jerking triumphalism.

"England 1 Janckers 0" after beating Germany was a tabloid headline right out of the "Gotcha" catalogue, neither clever nor funny.

How strange we remain so hung up on nineteen-sexty-sex!

Hooliganism had not done English football any favours

So these are the words of the modern Englishman...vulgar, aggressive, arrogant.

They used to be his bond and so was the English "gentleman's agreement", but then don't mention "that" to the Germans!

So what's the government doing about the English?

Reforming the education system and stabilising family life is long-term, of course.

But it started with an announcement this week about new legislation to stop the yobs travelling abroad.

It's a shame the government couldn't have introduced it before the hugely predictable events of Charleroi.

Realisation

If it had, then perhaps the Prime Minister would have found it possible to help present England's bid on Thursday. The impression was that he was distancing himself from failure.

The Football Association, meanwhile, is offering a new face to the world.

Chairman Geoff Thompson now has a seat on the Uefa executive committee, part of the long haul back towards winning friends and influencing people .

And now that there's a realisation that Lancaster Gate has long since ceased to be at the epicentre of world football, the strategy is outward-looking.

Manchester United's trip to South America in January may have been a failure in many ways, but at least we were going to them instead of expecting them to come to us.

Which they won't be, of course, in 2006.