Mark,
While I always enjoy reading your clever and insightful analyses of the average englishman's(read: soccer fan) mindset, I believe you still haven't come to the realization that America, and indeed americans, are a special breed.
You seem to keep forgeting what I told you a few years back when I apprised you of that oft forgotten phrase in the American Declaration Of Independence where Thomas Jefferson clearly stated:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, and the unquestioned Right to use their hands in all team sports."(this last part of course clearly must have been Mr. Jefferson's none too subtle reference to that sport you seem to care about so much)
After reading this lastest opinion of yours, I'm sorry but I have question your loyalty to this country to which you seem to have in all other areas in your life taken to your bossom the freedoms now firmly ingrained into the american mindset.
Once again, I'm talkin' 'bout the FREEDOM to use your hands, like we good americans do whenever we play baseball, football, basketball, hockey(okay, so that's really Canadian, but those guys up there are still on the north AMERICAN continent, ya know), and yeah I suppose even Heneryhawk's beloved westling!
And so I must ask: Where do your loyalties presently lie, Sir?
