What puzzles me is why the English (in particular) have this attitude towards Ireland but not Scotland & Wales.

English tend to rejoice in the Scottish being not very good at football (although some claim this is because "they don't like us so we don't like them") rather than adopting the paternal attitude they have towards the Irish football team.

Having lived in both England & Scotland I wish we could all just get along!

Interesting to hear your ideas on Germany & Austria though. Maybe it will change as Europe becomes more integrated (we can livein hope!) & we'll all club together to gang up on the Americans!

Thread creep here but I regard myself as European first, then British, then from the county I live in, then the town etc. (I think I'm in a minority though).