Keep a stiff upper lip, man: An England fan in South Africa after the German victory

We was robbed, weeps Ben Bentley. Well, okay, we left the shop door open, the safe ajar and a note on the counter saying: “Please can you lock up when you leave and pop the keys under the pot plant”, BUT we was robbed. . .

If the phrase ‘start as you mean to go on’ is something to strive for, then at least England were successful in fulfilling that bit of the game plan: we started rubbish, then petered out from there.

Conveniently for Germany, our defence decided not to turn up and we were two-nil down before Terry and Co finally decided to get out of bed.

But suddenly. . . it might have been the dodgy pint of pale ale working its wonders, but after Upson’s header to make it 2-1, there were ridiculous outbursts of over-optimism in our living room that resulted in our dog being kissed full on the mouth and winning a waggiest tail competition.

Then came the robbery. When is a goal not a goal? When it comes from Frank Lampard’s boot. Referee! How far was that over the line? If the game had been shown on ITV there’d have been an immediate commercial for Dolland and Aitchison.

Had the referee allowed it, who knows – we might have had a game. So now we want goal line technology introduced. Because we are all petulant kids stamping: “It’s not fair!”

No, it’s not fair. But that’s football, and anyway it’ll take a major re-wiring of Sepp Blatter’s brain to happen.

Interestingly, from the corner of the living room my wife – a non-footballing human being with an air of third party nonchalance about her – floated a neat alternative to goal-line technology, suggesting that if the disallowed strike could not be overturned, then the referee should be invited to admit his mistake and make the next German goal not count.

Which I thought was a wonderfully positive and inventive – and very female – solution. However, I fear Mr Blatter is isn’t going to go for it.

The no-goal should have inspired us, brought out the underdog spirit in us. Unfortunately, just like my amorous pooch, we decided to roll over and have our tummies tickled while our ‘deadly’ rivals hammered in another brace.

Shame on England. These players should never be let near an England shirt again. Capello might be responsible for results, but the players are responsible for performances, and this performance was an utter shambles, utterly clueless and bereft of the pride the Three Lions represents.

As Gary Lineker once said – football is a game that you play for 90 minutes and then the Germans win. Unfortunately, in this case we didn’t even play for 90 minutes.

We was robbed. Well, technically it was more of a distraction burglary on a vulnerable basket case, but the outcome was pretty much the same.

And to think that England had been practising penalties! The only penalty we should have got was a three-year stretch.

And in terms of whether goal-line technology should be introduced – yes it should. And to prevent any more smash-and-grab raids like this, I’d go one stage further and install a full CCTV system in the back of the net.