England Becomes The North East

I have never understood why we made so much of a fuss about football in the North East when we were really not very good at it, although the club within the historic County of Durham was a lot better than the other two, and when we were much better at cricket, which (like hunting and shooting) does not have the class connotations here that it has in the South.

And now I wonder, as really I always should have done, why we make so much of a fuss about football in England as a whole when we are really not very good at it, and when we are much better at cricket, a game, moreover, which really was invented here.