WE England fans used to pity you lot, with your heroic players like Ryan Giggs and your inability to ever reach a major tournament.

You, the plucky Welsh, the Scottish with their tens of thousands of fans and their one or two not useless players, or the Northern Irish who hadn’t had a good un since George Best, you were all easy to patronise for so long.

As for the Republic of Ireland, they sort of became relevant in the late 80s and early 90s, so we England fans embraced them, because Big Jackie Charlton was so easy to love and half the team were English anyway, but then they fell away and we didn’t have to worry about them anymore. Hell, we even joined the hate campaign against Thierry Henry and the cheating French.

However, that my Celtic friends, was then. It is now 2014 and take it from someone who learned about emotional distress from Paul Gascoigne getting booked against Germany in Italia 90 – I was nine and he was my god – England no longer have cause to pity Wales and the rest.

In fact, it’s time for you to pity us, because speaking as someone who has supported England for about 25-years and followed Wales for half that time, it’s now much, much more fun to be Welsh.

It’s more fun to follow Wales than England and it’s also more fun to follow Scotland, Northern Ireland or Eire. Your time is now.

It’s easy to mock football’s power brokers, they make it so easy, but Michel Platini’s revamped European Championships is working for me, big time.

Whether I’ll agree when the tournament quality is drastically diluted remains to be seen, but the 24 team Euros and the ‘week of football’ qualifying that accompanies it, it’s all floating my boat Jeff, and very much so.

Having more teams qualifying has simultaneously made the established nations complacent and the smaller ones, like Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, not feel defeated by their seeding before a ball is kicked.

The groups are exciting and unpredictable and the last international break was easily the most fun I’ve ever had covering Wales, a nation now full of optimism.

It’s a fantastic time for European international soccer, unless you’re an England fan, because dire football and a never ending debate on whether Raheem Sterling was tired isn’t really doing it for me. Yes England will qualify, but they’ll also fail in France, this we know.

It’s why it’s more fun to follow Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland or Eire, because you can just enjoy the ride.