In shops shirtless men carry crates of cut-priced beer with beaming smiles. In gardens and pubs friends and family flock together once again with hopeful joviality and reckless abandon. Prosecco popped, beers sunk. The shirts of players pervade every direction you look. Flags, too. There’s something in the air, undeniably. What exactly that is, is close to ineffable. But it’s there.
It’s the reason last Sunday felt like a Saturday, and the day felt like night. It’s the reason offices across the country’s productivity levels hit a dismal low when Monday came. But — and unforgettably — it’s also the reason there’s a skip in so many steps across Europe as I write this right now. Seizing the day is just that bit easier when international football is on.
I watched England play Croatia in a sun-drenched Clapham back garden. My friend vomited mere seconds after the final whistle. That was around 4pm. If you’ve run out of data or are in a coma or something, we won. 1-0. A characteristically underwhelming performance. The more cerebral fan will have grown to love wins like this; akin to writing, music, art, getting the desired result in unconventional and ugly ways is sometimes more beautiful.
And that’s us, England. Agricultural football is our modus operandi and I fucking love it. But let’s be honest: that’s sort of besides the point. Football isn’t the point when it comes to international tournaments. It’s the trimmings of football, that’s what matters. If the appeal was simply football in its merciless mundanity it wouldn’t be the multi-billion industry it is.
ArrayCommunity, mostly. That’s what it is. When the football is on people find coming together that much more attractive. Obviously there’s the revelry too, the ugly side, friends throwing up at 4pm and whatnot: that’s the postcard image of football. And it definitely needs acknowledging.
Football is a melting pot for racism, sexism, homophobia. General retrogressive sensibilities go hand-in-hand with football fanaticism. That’s why we heard boos and jeers when England players took the knee in the build-up games that took place in Middlesbrough.
After which a 19-year-old Bukayo Saka was accosted with an agitative question: ‘why do you think they did it?’ Nineteen, just scored your first goal for England on your national debut and you’re being asked to explain this deeply illogical and entrenched opposition to progressive gestures. He answered maturely: ‘I don’t understand why they did it. You’ll have to ask the fans that were booing to understand why they did it.’
The Tartan Army pull down goalposts after Scotland beat England 2-1 at Wembley Stadium. (Photo: Malcolm Clarke)
So obviously it can feel embarrassing to cheer for England unabashedly, to don the shirts and sing the songs. But consider this: the mental gymnastics necessary to exclaim you’re proud to be English are laborious and problematic. Football is a loophole. It’s spectacular, really: something which in essence is unavoidably frivolous and inconsequential — we don’t get to add the defeated’s national dishes to our cuisine or anything — allows us to be proud about where we’re from.
For a moment we’re enabled to look at our fellow countrymen and say ‘yes, I too am from where they are from. And for that I would die for them, and them for me.’ We’re able to espouse this totally foreign feeling and hug strangers and throw £6 plastic-cupped pints in the air. In spite of a vocal minority, it feels like our complicated national identity becomes a bit less complicated, even if it is for just a month.
Plus look how buoyed our lives become when the footy is on. This past Sunday the streets were flooded, pub gardens were packed. Strangers asked how I was and offered me drinks. The air felt fresher and the skies bluer. For many the happiness and exuberance is totally unmatched. I feel this may currently be what is needed with us emerging from lockdown.
ArrayReopening anxiety has permeated what should be jubilant moments — seeing family again, getting pints inside, going to the cinema. So maybe a sort of social glue, a palpable intoxication, is exactly what a lot of us need.
I am currently writing this article in a pub at 2pm in Catford. Scotland are playing and It is full. People are laughing and shouting. They’re full of the zeal which felt acutely inaccessible in lockdown. We lost touch with the primal, visceral part of life and it’s back now, sort of.
As for what’s actually happening on the pitch our chances look favourable, but I wouldn’t get carried away. Ignominious defeat is in our blood and seemingly France have seemingly monopolised talented footballers. Plus, we limped past an evidently weak Croatia team on Sunday.
What will happen in our next two games won’t necessarily be telling either, unless it’s a goal feast. The true assessment comes in the knockout games.
But really, my point is this hardly matters. Life is complex and football is simple. It’s unbecoming to ignore the issues, definitely, but if there ever was a time to I’d say it is now. Let’s park that conversation for now and enjoy the moment. Let’s applaud our friends vomiting at 4pm.
Wildly cheer shirtless men in shops? Maybe a step too far, but you get what I mean. Let’s have it, it’s coming home.
Photo: Ben Radford
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