IT was several months ago now that the first World Cup conversation took place. Who were lads going to support? Portugal? Chile? Uruguay? For whatever reason, the idea seemed to be to pick a team that can get out of their group but has no chance at all of winning the thing.
The most obvious example of that is of course England. Who would get behind England though? Well, I would, and I will.
My support for England at a major tournament is a new thing, though it certainly has nothing to do with reciprocal state visits and “relations being at an all-time high”.
The first reason is bullshit. As a source of bullshit, the England football team has been more than giving over the decades.
A tournament's moment approaches around and, despite all evidence to the contrary, it’s ‘best-player-in-the-world’ this and ‘we’re-going-to-win-the-World-Cup’ that and have a bit of golden generation while you’re here. In particularly grim times a dollop of war-time jingoism has been stirred into the pot.
That strain of insanity no longer exists. After years of shock therapy by mainly Argentina and Germany it was finally lobotomised by Germany in 2010.
I remember sitting in an Irish bar on the south coast during that 4-1 rout. I’d gone down hoping to watch Dublin-Meath on the smaller screen but the pub was packed full of In-ger-land top boys and I didn’t complain at having to miss the first half from Croke Park.
At the end of the match I admit I was a bit nervous asking to switch one of the TVs over. The top boys were watching the inquest and some of them were scary looking and one had an even scarier looking dog. There was no hassle though. In fact they seemed almost relieved. They weren’t going to win the World Cup. They didn’t rule the waves. They certainly weren’t going to go outside and smash the town up. They weren’t even going to have the usual bellyache about the disallowed goal. It might have been given, yeah, but it would only have prolonged the misery; offered baseless hope.
June 27 2010 wasn’t about baseless hope. It was about reality. It was about a bloated, over-hyped side colliding with a young, lean, bold team who had no respect for false advertising.
Since then, the England football public has been like a reformed addict. Theirs is not the best team in the world; they’re cumbersome, one-footed, slow-witted and tactically-illiterate. You almost expect England fans to begin phoning up anybody they’ve ever bullshitted and apologise – step eight of 12. Well they’ve already done step nine – make direct amends to people. How many more friendly games with Ireland where no chair will be harmed are going to be arranged?
Before, the main pleasure from England at major championships was watching their certain demise. It was biannual Greek tragedy where the hubristic heroes depart on a quest and the Gods toy with their vanity and think of new and crueller ways to crush their hopes.
Nobody of fair mind could revel in an England crash-and-burn now. The England team and fans are modest and almost wholly inoffensive. You almost wish they’d revert to their old mad selves just for the spectacle. But they won’t and I, for one, wish them well.
England’s new found lack of delusion is not the only reason for their appeal. Their football culture is admirable. By football culture we don’t mean billionaire owners, millionaire players, £80 tickets, £80 replica shirts, over-zealous stewards, schedules to suit Asian TV audiences over the fans that made these clubs what they are.
English football culture is the supporters who continue to follow their teams in spite of all of this nonsense. It’s more than 20,000 supporters turning up every match day to watch Wolves week in, week out in League One; it’s an average of 15,000 at League Two Portsmouth.
Up and down the country, from the Premier League to the Championship to the non-leagues, English supporters have the capacity to get behind some unbelievably shit teams – and they do it every time they play.
The national team should reward and reflect this culture; put on a show for the fans who show up in every weather, week after excruciating week.
Also, a national team should reflect the best characteristics of its people. For too long, the England side has been about a narrow view of Englishness; graft, reliability and, paradoxically, hubris. But England isn’t just a country of water-carrying yeomen – from music to literature to theatre and film it has been, and still is, an artistic powerhouse.
Artistic footballers, though, have not been trusted by the grey men of the FA down the years: whatever you think about Glenn Hoddle’s karmic opinions, you have to respect his ability to be able to do whatever he wanted with a football. But he was never cherished in an England shirt. Brian Clough once said that if he were manager he would build the team around Hoddle. Clough was never allowed to manage the team. He would have been too controversial – he might have even won something. And who wants that?
Instead of being the country of Brian Clough and Glenn Hoddle, England were Ron Greenwood and Bryan Robson.
To this day you will see England players self-censor any expressive thought that occurs to them. If there is one word I’d associate with the team now and for as long as I remember it’s “inhibited”.
I watched their friendly against Denmark a couple of months back, bored as usual whenever England are playing. What was most striking was how nobody wanted to make a mistake. Far from being the prima donnas of stereotype, the players all ran around plenty and tried hard. As soon as there was a low-risk, get-rid-of-the-ball option, though, they took it. Make a mistake in an England shirt and you’ll be crucified, so everybody minimises risk and as such they minimise reward too.
It’s telling that the best displays for England in recent history have come from players too young to realise what’s going on: Paul Gascoigne in 1990, Michael Owen in 98, Wayne Rooney in 2004. None of these ever kicked on from being teenage/early 20s heroes. Once they realised they carried the hopes of a deeply irrational national this led to slow decline rather than inspiration.
You wish Roy Hodgson, a decent man, would give a team talk centered around the theme that nobody gives a f***.
“None of this really matters lads. You won’t be a villain like Pearse/Waddle/Southgate/Beckham/Rooney if you f*** up today. We’ve been so s**t for so long that nobody expects anything other than failure. So just do your best and don’t be afraid to try something audacious. You’re all good players. People say you’re not but what do they know? You got to the top of an industry where anybody with the price of a pair of boots could enter. They didn’t. This is your stage, show people how you’ve earned the right to play on it and for the love of England don’t be slow to take a risk. Do you think we could have won two World Wars and One World Cup if we never took a ri-”
Okay cut!
Got a bit carried away with the old England teamtalk there.
Therein lies the danger perhaps. A change of mindset might just bring about a more successful England team and, possibly, a return of all the craziness of old. Maybe not, though, let’s be optimistic.
For now England are the underdogs, humble and hopeless, nowhere near to representing the real nature of their football culture or their culture full-stop. They are in a sad state, lost. Take pleasure in that if you will but I hope they find a way to express their true selves, because I like England.
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