Never the ones to leave a chance to assert their dominance, they have often been found saying things that didn’t go down too well with others. The same goes for their fans.

However, what happens when one of them loses? Their fans are much more subtle now (believe it or not) but there was a time when even people from their own country were savage towards them in case of a defeat. 

Prime example: This ‘obituary’ published by a journalist from London after England’s loss to Australia in a match in 1882. The Aussies won despite not being the favourites and it was one of the earliest instances of them showing the much famous ‘Australianism’.

This is where it all began. from r/Cricket

Australia defeated England on its soil and writing a piece to announce that, journalist Reginald Shirley Brooks wrote a mock orbituary.

After this, a tour was arranged between the two countries in Australia and the then England captain  Ivo Bligh vowed to ‘regain those ashes’.

England won 2 out of 3 Test matches and the captain was presented with an urn by a group of women from Melbourne and it was widely believed that it had the ashes of a bail inside. Bligh married one of those women- Florence Morphy – within a year.

It was much later that the series started being called ‘The Ashes’ formally as the term was forgotten and remembered again, multiple times.

A little grim, but it does make for a great story, doesn’t it?