What are we, the fans, supposed to do now that England are out of Euro 2000? I suppose we could support France or Holland. After all, most of their men play in our League.
Or we could take an interest in chair-throwing, the new pastime our hooligans have popularised in the streets of Belgium and which is bound to be an Olympic sport soon.
What we cannot do, especially after losing to Romania and exiting Euro 2000 last night, is kid ourselves Kevin Keegan's England are any good.
That didn't stop me shouting myself hoarse for my country last night in Charleroi, nor prevent me making a prat of myself when our chaps annihilated Germany, but even as I danced around on Saturday there was a nagging suspicion that we had only been the marginally better of two inferior teams.
So whatever UEFA decide to do with us and our thugs in the future, it shouldn't disguise the blunt truth that the England football team haven't been much cop for decades. The last time we won anything was before man had walked on the moon.
We've experienced a few epic, enthralling adventures since, especially during the Nineties, but they all ended in failure.
This time our goalkeeper, our mid-field enforcer and our main striker were so far past their prime that if they were horses they'd be put down, or at least put out to grass.
I happen to believe we'll have a decent team by the time the 2014 World Cup comes around because, by then, the small-sided games which young kids are playing now will have produced a different type of footballer.
If you watch a six or seven-a-side game on a scaled down pitch you'll see that, instead of 20 kids chasing all over the pitch and the biggest, strongest players dominating by brute force, they are learning to pass.
You have to look up and pass prop-erly on a little pitch because if you just welly the ball it will go out of play.
How wonderful it would be if a similar innovation could profoundly change the habits of the young men who travel abroad to support England. Alas, there are no quick fixes for that one.
After all, it has taken years to get into this mess; years of tolerating lad-dish, loutish behaviour in our pubs and on our streets on weekend nights, years of thinking that binge drinking and drunkenness are what lager was made for.
It's all a laugh, isn't it? Just men behaving badly. But a country which laughs when a bloke who has "Pussy hunter" tattooed on his fat gut is frog-marched out of Belgium should understand that the rest of the continent doesn't share the joke.
Other countries have hooligans but nobody behaves quite as atrociously as Brits on tour. And, yes, other countries' police forces sometimes handle the situations badly but that does not excuse the fact that when the Brits go abroad, their conduct is hideous.
Brits in Ibiza and every other package holiday resort warm enough for the girls to get their bits out for the lads have been behaving gruesomely, without restraint and without a care for the consequences, for years. So we shouldn't be surprised when they get into fights when the passions of football are added to the equation.
These are Mrs Thatcher's 'children', the generation who grew up being told that there's no such thing as society, so they don't care what society thinks about them, much less what the Krauts, Frogs, Wops and the rest think.
When they are "on tour" the Brits don't have to get up the next day for work or face their parents, so they just "go for it".
I haven't a clue what to do about it. I know columnists are meant to have ready answers, but I have none. Sorry.
What I do know is that while our football team may be poor, our yobs are in a league of their own, and accepting that brutal fact might be a start.
TV windfall will save academies
THOSE of us who support clubs in the Nationwide League are not much bothered about Sky's new mega-bucks contract with the Premiership.
Our clubs are so seldom on telly or radio that we are sometimes reduced to 'watching' games on teletext.
There have been many occasions when I've sat in my kitchen staring (often in anguish through the fingers of my hand) at a page of Ceefax.
That probably won't change much under the new deal struck by the Nationwide League with ONdigital and ITV but the cash being shelled out will make a massive difference.
The deal was first reported by Standard Sport but, with the Premiership contract and certain events in Holland and Belgium dominating the news, the penny may not have dropped about how many pennies will drop into the lap of Nationwide clubs.
In the First Division, for instance, they'll get £3.15 million each, instead of the current £750,000 or so.
News of the windfall comes when the Football Association are getting ready to check on those clubs who were allowed to set up youth academies.
They are going to close down those academies which have not met their strict criteria and a number of clubs are worrying whether they will be able to afford to build all the required facilities before the FA review.
Now, thanks to the TV deal, most of the academies will be able to survive the review and continue to groom young players. The new TV deals inevitably provoked glib, simplistic headlines about greed but the truth is a little more complicated than that.
Proof that Jimmy's not over the hill
GARY LINEKER has improved since his first stab at broadcasting, when he told BBC viewers that because the pitch was hard the players would all be wearing rubbers.
They should, indeed, be worn on every conceivable occasion, but Lineker needs no protection from verbal fumblings these days. He's become very good.
The problem he's had during Euro 2000 is that his panel haven't had a decent row.
Lineker, Alan Hansen and Martin O'Neill seem in awe of Johan Cruyff and far too respectful of each other. It's like watching a church council, except that some church councils get much more heated.
Meanwhile, over on the other channel, they're fielding Bobby Robson, Terry Venables and Glenn Hoddle. It's an impressive line-up. Until they speak.
They are frightened of saying anything controversial so they don't say anything much at all.
Des Lynam asked Hoddle: "How would you play it against Germany?" And halfway through the first sentence of his reply, Hoddle said: "I'm not saying that's what Kevin should do."
Whichever channel you watch you are left wishing someone would start an argument, someone who is not afraid to speak his mind even if people scoff at his opinions.
Bring back Jimmy Hill.
