Just a couple of hours to go...

...and then it is make or break for the England team.

At 3pm the whistle will sound the start of the match between England and Germany - a game that most Englishmen & women will watch with some trepidation. Past meetings with Germany have not tended to go in our favour in big events like this but we have proved that we can beat them and have done so on numerous occasions by very healthy scores...remember the 5-1 win in 2001.

Our team need to pull up their socks and give their all - we are here, right behind them, flags flying and raising a glass or two to cheer them on their way to success.

I can't say I'm a huge footie fan, and I can't tell you all the finer details of the game...but I am English and proud of it (well, perhaps a little bit of a European mongrel - descended from French/German/English).

Andy at Pinnacle Crafts is getting a little wound-up waiting for todays game and he had posted the following quote on his blog...

KING HENRY V:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Hope you didn't mind me pinching it Andy, I couldn't have expressed National pride in a better way.

COME ON ENGLAND!!!