John Nicholson

Some England fans can be hard to like. Chanting support for the BBC over Setanta, singing 'No surrender' , the bellowing of the awful 'national' anthem which pledges loyalty to inbred privilege, the dreadful predictability of the Great Escape and Self Preservation Society music makes them come over as awful reactionaries and lends an air of desperation to every England game

But one thing England fans have become really good at is booing their own team.

England being booed off at half time in Andorra surprised no one. But there was a time not too long ago when England being booed by their own fans was utterly unthinkable.

You just didn't boo your own side; you only booed the opposition.

But today booing is commonplace throughout the game. If your team plays poorly for 45 minutes, they'll invariably come off to a hail storm of it. It's not pretty. I don't like it.

This is initially very puzzling to someone of my generation. I have to tell you, the very idea of booing Bobby Moore and the boys was absolutely unthinkable even when we were rubbish. It would have had the moral equivalence of s**tting in your granny's mouth. It was something that it just didn't enter your head to do.

It was just disrespectful; such things did kind of matter back then. Ok, they were playing poorly and we all had our own personal I-can't-believe-he's-been-picked-again player (mine was usually Martin Chivers) but we still didn't boo them.

But in the last ten years booing seems to have become endemic and a totally acceptable way for fans to vent their spleen. They may be right or wrong, I don't know. I do know I've never booed my club, the Boro, or England at any time despite extreme and persistent provocation to do so.

To me it feels wrong. Wrong like licking your sister's nipples. It's just a cultural assimilation I made at an early age, like talking to cats, eating my greens and ogling exposed cleavage. Its soul deep now and no amount of godawful players and performances can make me change. I ain't booing no one. Never have, never will.

Clearly though, I'm in a minority now. So why have things changed so profoundly? Is it all a consequence of the interactive age where everyone thinks they've a right to be heard? The phone-in culture of outrage and indignation; maybe it's an extension of that.

Usually the answer to what is wrong with football is, 'money'. It's an easy and commonplace thing to say that money has ruined football.

Is that right though? I'm a massive Jimmy Bullard fan for all of the reasons regularly mentioned here. But Jimmy is a rich bloke too. Football has made him wealthy. Jimmy is a millionaire. But we don't mind Jimmy's money. We don't begrudge him it. He plays with a joy and love of football and he's not an arrogant arsehole. Jimmy being rich seems like one chalked up for the good guys.

So it can't be the money per se which has changed fans into boo-boys. I would suggest rather it is a reaction to the perceived unearned and undeserved wealth and respect that has led to this new attitude from fans towards players. At core it is 'you're supposed to great but you're not and yet you're rich beyond avarice.'

When you watch Frank Lampard and his furrowed brow playing another anonymous game for his country knowing that if he worked a 40 hour week, as most people typically do, he would be earning roughly £3,750.00 per hour; that's around £1.04 per second, it is hard for the bile not to rise in your throat, especially if you work hard for little money. We feel that if someone is to so be so lavished upon in life they should be earth-shatteringly good. They should be a genius. It's not unreasonable.

The booing seems to have become a way for fans to momentarily morally redress the situation. To let a player or team know that we know they are not worthy of their status or their riches and we have withdraw our support for them. Of course this is a bit crazy because if in the second half Frankie knocks a couple in - not likely I know - then the booing goes away and we all cheer. Football's ficklest fans do no one any favours.

Our relationship with our footballers has never been more complicated, especially at national level. I must confess on Saturday at least 25% of me was kind of hoping we got beat. I feel like I'm confessing to punching a pensioner saying that. I never, ever used to feel that way. Never. It's changed recently. Behind it is getting a thrill at seeing over-lauded, over-rewarded men making themselves look foolish. Schadenfreude is a seductive if destructive mistress. I'm not proud of it.

I've been to games where there is an air of indignation, of insult around. Like we, the fans, are having the p*ss taken out of us by players. Most usually this takes the form of a complaint which always begins 'they're paid all that money...' or 'he's on 40k a week...'

So yes, the booing is probably largely all about the money. Money may or may not be spoiling the quality of the football on the pitch but it has messed with our heads, with our psyche and our soul. We're obsessed and repulsed and yet covetous of it.

In 2008 players and fans are trapped in an unhealthy, mutually abusive relationship. Both sides feeling abused and misunderstood. We used to all be on the same side. We celebrated and commiserated together. Not now. Now failed players slink off in cars that cost more than many people will earn in decade to live a life of luxury we cannot imagine.

The players think we don't understand the pressure they're under. And of course, we don't. Being exposed as a fraud at international football must be hard to take game after game.

After the game John Terry was gracious enough to say that after the half time boo-fest, the fans 'got their reward' with Cole's two goals.

Our reward? That was a reward was it? Feel patronized? Yeah me too.

Maybe he just chose his words badly, it's easy enough to do, or maybe some people unintentionally reveal more about themselves than they realize. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that few of us felt rewarded on Saturday night.

The late great Bobby Moore, a man of class and dignity who was England's finest captain and finest centre-half, would certainly have known that. We didn't boo Bobby.

Given all this, it's perhaps surprising that booing is the only expression of disgust by the paying public. Perhaps its surprising fans don't routinely drag the players off the pitch by their hair, strip them naked and paint them with tar.

Should we really sit their quietly and take it like we used to? Should we really cheer on people who we often really dislike? I just don't know anymore.

I think we all want to like and support the players really. We want them to be 11 Jimmy Bullards; regular Joes who worked hard, got lucky, made good and give everything they have in return. People about whom you can say, 'fair play to the lad'.

On thing is for sure, the booing isn't helping matters improve on or off the pitch. Despite their manifest international failure the players still get richer and more distant in their gated mansions, the transfer fees are still massive and the agents, administrators and assorted ar*eholes still cream it up day in day out no matter how many times or how hard you boo them. Much like Frank Lampard in England's midfield, it is having no effect at all. Indeed, it may be making things worse.

So maybe it's time to change; time to stop booing them; booing suggests we're taking it all too seriously. No, it's time to start laughing at them instead. Laughter is much more powerful. It is insulting in a way which spiky aggression just isn't. Players are used to aggression but they're not used to being laughed at by tens of thousands of people. And ultimately, it would be a more appropriate response to the situation. Let's face it, when someone is paid £1.04 per second to play football, the situation has become ludicrous.

As another hapless long ball goes out of touch, as another cross hits the first man, as another dead ball is kicked into the wall and when an England player's first touch bounces wildly off their expensively sponsored boot, what better response than gales of hysterical laughter?

In a world gone mad, it's the only sane thing left to do.

When not laughing at millionaires or pondering how wrong it would be to s**t in his granny's mouth, Johnny sells t-shirts at www.djtees.com.