England fans have forgotten all their team's shameful defeats

Just got back from my summer hols, which we always take in January. First week in Barbados, I was well in touch with vital matters, as it is Little England, with all items of Brit news readily available. Week two, I was in Bequia, sans TV, radio, not even a local paper. Naturally, I was panting when I got home. First game I saw was Sunderland v Birmingham City. Boring. Then I caught some of Derby County, bit of Bolton, spot of Wigan, dash of Fulham. Is it them, or am I still suffering from jet lag? Behind my back, standards in the Premiership seem to have plummeted. It was as if the ball were their enemy, belting it upfield, into the air, heading and passing to no one.

OK, so these are teams in the lower half, but before I'd gone away, I wasn't quite aware of how rubbish they were. I was rolling with it, buoyed up by overexcited Sky commentators and the back pages into believing that the Premier League was the best on the planet - hurrah for us.

I also came back to learn that Prem attendances are up this season, with big jumps at Villa (12 per cent) and Man City (9 per cent). Even at Blackburn (8 per cent) and Wigan (7 per cent) - two pretty dreary teams this season.

At Man United and Arsenal, the gates have not changed because Old Trafford and the Emirates are always full. Watching them play, I could see that the gap in quality between them and the rest is now enormous. Yet that doesn't seem to be putting off supporters at all the other clubs.

Fans of Newcastle United, another dreary team, still seem to be in the throes of orgasms caused by the arrival of Kevin Keegan. For no discernible reason. When Michael Owen scored a goal, against Middlesbrough - his first for about 20 years - I thought the crowd would all have heart attacks. Over at Sunderland, their fans are still screaming "Keane-O, Keane-O". Yet, like KK, he's done nothing and his team is full of lumps.

I expect if England manage a draw, or even - oh rapture - a win against Switzerland (I'm writing this two days before the game), we'll have dancing in the streets, special supplements in the papers, a commemorative mug and an extra bank holiday.

As for all the acres of print devoted to Becks and whether or not he would get his 100th cap, I just could not believe it. It was an utter non-story. How could Fabio Capello even consider giving a cap to someone who has retired from football, has not played a serious game for about a year, and is working full-time as an international male model? Potty. Yet most of the nation wanted it to happen.

Are we all blind, or what? Have we forgotten that the only really exciting players in England today are foreign: Ronaldo, Drogba, Adebayor? Has the ignominy of those games against Israel and Croatia, of not even managing to qualify for this summer's European competition and our abysmal performance in the last World Cup, been wiped from our collective consciousness? The answer, clearly, is yes.

But why? First, the body footballic has remarkable powers of recovery. All those wounds we suffered have miraculously healed without recourse to artificial stimulants, such as actually winning something.

Second, we as a nation, not just a footballing nation, are awfully mature. We don't worry about foreign upstarts with bigger guns, armies, economies, more pots. We've been there, done all that. We're ahead of the game. That's the theory I'm going to cling on to. So it's hurrah for us, after all.

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