God save our gracious Queen... and our fingernails!

What is it with us lot leaving it late? Can we not just win something with ease, for once, please?

This year, new Formula 1 team Brawn Mercedes surprisingly chose Jensen Button to drive for them. Winning 6 races out of 7, it looked to be a stroke of brilliance by the new boys.

However British traditions came along to shift events into a different gear. Button began to drop places throughout the next few races but still remained in the points. Dawdling across the finish line he actually managed to secure the championship with one whole race left. Unbelievable! A Brit put us at ease before an event even finished. Even if it was down to the destruction derby that took place on the first lap… We are British and we take whatever we get; however we get it, yes?

The last painful entry to this list was another F1 driver, Lewis Hamilton in 2008. Don’t get me wrong he is very talented. However, leaving it to the last corner, of the last race, only to be helped by a former teammate to win, doesn’t scream future legend.

You would think he would of learnt from the previous year having been in the exact same situation. He didn’t set out to win that race, all he needed was 5th (much like Mr. Button) so that’s what he aimed for. As Brits we seem to have a tendency of ‘playing it safe,’ and more often than not it gets us into trouble.

Just picking on Lewis isn’t fair. Examples of these last gasp victories pop up across all different kinds of sport. Kelly Holmes at the 2004 Olympics, she didn’t even know she had won! I also recall the 2008 Olympics when the rowing team and also 400m runner Christine Ohuruogu won gold medals, in what has become our unique version of ‘winning in style.’

This may of been a while ago but still. Lets take the England rugby team winning the World Cup in 2003 (those really were the days). Not only did Johnny Wilkinson carry the team throughout the whole thing, his brilliant left foot won it in the dying seconds!

Theres always been that famous saying: “Inch or a mile, winnings winning.” Nevertheless can anyone honestly say they wouldn’t rather win comfortably? People’s reaction, in most cases, is more of relief than celebration. For me I’d rather have my fingernails left after an event.

So it seems we can’t do it in a team let alone individually. Two English football teams got to the Champion’s League final in 2008. Wow, good for us! Unsurprisingly it went down to the wire. Just to add to the typically scrappy affair, England’s captain, John Terry, missed the penalty that would of won the game for Chelsea.

When people see that fixture they will be baffled with the fact that again, this year we had the best club teams in the world. Still, to avoid the same mishap this year Chelsea were forbidden access to the final (denied 3 obvious penalties) in their semi-final match with eventual winners Barcelona.

Although less than half of the players starting most football games are British, the club itself is, so that’s enough right? If our youngsters aren’t good enough we can’t complain about the foreign dominance in the Premier League. The league talked about as ‘the best in the world’ will never have the title because of its British talent unless we win the World Cup. So that would be nice please lads.

I don’t know what we can do to sort this out, but I suppose as long as we’re winning (rarely but winnings winning remember!) People are going to be happy, and, get so drunk they’ll just forget how unbearable the whole ordeal was. Maybe I should do the same.