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| Stanford Bridge - watching Chelsea. |
Then like clockwork, halfway across the river, the frog feels a sharp pain and cries out to the Scorpion, why did you do that, we're both going to die.
The scorpion's reply: "it's in my nature".
So sums up English football, and in no small measure a chunk of the way we tend to do things.
Your three year old niece learning how to feed her little Bratz could have told England fans, technically boys you don't stand a chance.
But we soldier on; win one game, two and by the third believe luck has nothing to do with it. It's in our nature. And it happens each time the team take to the pitch, to the chorus of "C'mon England" as die hard fans fork out a small fortune.
It ends with, "we weren't good enough on the day, but we'll make it next time". It's in our nature.
Pity the hapless million pound stars, whom on English soil regale fans with "biff, biff, balls" as sturdy athletes, with thighs the girth of a baby calf, charge the length of the field and single handedly, gladiatorially, win the ball.
Now that's proper football they'll tell you, as someone delivers a silky punch to his opponents mid riff. Did I hear you say Joey Barton? Google him. Now that's football and its in our nature.
But do pity the English national game, because frankly if the new manager had all the time in Churchill's kingdom to revise plans and a strategy, he simply could not.
Because percentage-wise a large majority of the English game play "biff, biff, balls". "C'mon my son run for it'.
English footballers wouldn't know how to hang on to the ball, let alone thread five connecting passes together, because they've never been taught that way. And playing on the biggest stage after a couple of weeks together will not change that.
Here's the crux. For every ball that went to Hart, the goal keeper, and a fine one at that, he "biff, biffed, the ball" high on yonder for a hapless forward to "do you "#2ging work and get the ball". It's in our nature.
And if you don't believe me, next Sunday roll a dice and turn up to any green patch with a goal and listen to the next generation - all of ten years old - goaded by their parents to: "kick it, go on kick it.. anywhere..."
Interestingly enough, not a single commentator made the point that Hart, for the love of Osbourne's redactable pork pies tax, stop kicking the bloody ball and throw it. Oh no, it's in our nature.
So let's look forward to the World Cup, to renewed hype to sell shirts, tickets, and newspapers. To a nation that sadly again will be, for goodness sake, found with its pants around its knees.
Oh we're good enough, it's just we've got a thing with frog legs actually and truthfully that really is in our nature
