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| England’s World Cup campaign has given us a glimpse of a better world | England’s World Cup campaign has given us a glimpse of a better world |
| (4 months later) | |
| Oh well. Take a wet wipe to the red and white face paint, remove the St George’s flag hanging from your car window, delete all the Lightning Seeds memes you had saved in your drafts. Football said it was coming home, but it stopped off in a bar in Zagreb on the way and, well, one thing led to another, and now football has shacked up with Mario Mandžukić. | Oh well. Take a wet wipe to the red and white face paint, remove the St George’s flag hanging from your car window, delete all the Lightning Seeds memes you had saved in your drafts. Football said it was coming home, but it stopped off in a bar in Zagreb on the way and, well, one thing led to another, and now football has shacked up with Mario Mandžukić. |
| In the post-match interview, Luka Modric, the Croatian Zidane who is tragically trapped inside the body of a bass player from a forgettable 2000s indie band, said that the English pundits had been arrogant to think that football was coming home. I get his point, but he’s mistaking arrogance for escapism. The reason everyone was so excited about football coming home is that home hasn’t been that much fun for the past two years – it’s been angry, mean and fearful. This was the first time in a long while that I’ve seen a bunch of England flags and didn’t immediately think “didn’t the EDL just have a Free Tommy Robinson march?” | In the post-match interview, Luka Modric, the Croatian Zidane who is tragically trapped inside the body of a bass player from a forgettable 2000s indie band, said that the English pundits had been arrogant to think that football was coming home. I get his point, but he’s mistaking arrogance for escapism. The reason everyone was so excited about football coming home is that home hasn’t been that much fun for the past two years – it’s been angry, mean and fearful. This was the first time in a long while that I’ve seen a bunch of England flags and didn’t immediately think “didn’t the EDL just have a Free Tommy Robinson march?” |
| England’s World Cup ride was like a glorious intermission from Brexit, from Donald Trump’s visit, from all the difficult and terrible things that the country is facing right now, like someone had pressed pause on the horror film we were all being forced to endure and let us watch Wallace and Gromit for a few minutes instead. | England’s World Cup ride was like a glorious intermission from Brexit, from Donald Trump’s visit, from all the difficult and terrible things that the country is facing right now, like someone had pressed pause on the horror film we were all being forced to endure and let us watch Wallace and Gromit for a few minutes instead. |
| England players replaced our problems, albeit briefly: instead of chaos, we had Kane; instead of pathetic politicians, we had Pickford; instead of sterling collapsing, we had Sterling running through the defence about to score a brilliant goal and then collapsing, which was admittedly frustrating but still way better than having to think about Jacob Rees-Mogg. And at the head of it all was Gareth; our charming Gareth, a new humble role model for British masculinity, a man who radiates kindness, understanding and politeness so much that he must have been bitten by a radioactive Canadian. They were decent people to support in a country that has been starved of decency – not just in sport, but in public discourse – for a very long time. | England players replaced our problems, albeit briefly: instead of chaos, we had Kane; instead of pathetic politicians, we had Pickford; instead of sterling collapsing, we had Sterling running through the defence about to score a brilliant goal and then collapsing, which was admittedly frustrating but still way better than having to think about Jacob Rees-Mogg. And at the head of it all was Gareth; our charming Gareth, a new humble role model for British masculinity, a man who radiates kindness, understanding and politeness so much that he must have been bitten by a radioactive Canadian. They were decent people to support in a country that has been starved of decency – not just in sport, but in public discourse – for a very long time. |
| And now they’re gone. The intermission is over. We have to get back to the horror movie – and what’s worse, the horror movie has continued while we were away, and now the characters are meaner, bloodier and stupider. We’re in the middle of another political crisis, another round of back-stabbing Tories, another cull of mediocre faceless politicians, to be replaced by another set of mediocre faceless politicians. Just look at the calibre of cabinet ministers we have to talk about now – you can tell just from the names. “David Davis has been replaced by Dominic Raab.” There’s something weirdly apt about how neither of those names sound like real people – I could have said “William Billiam has been replaced by Jebediah Buuuuuurk” and really it would have made about as much sense. | And now they’re gone. The intermission is over. We have to get back to the horror movie – and what’s worse, the horror movie has continued while we were away, and now the characters are meaner, bloodier and stupider. We’re in the middle of another political crisis, another round of back-stabbing Tories, another cull of mediocre faceless politicians, to be replaced by another set of mediocre faceless politicians. Just look at the calibre of cabinet ministers we have to talk about now – you can tell just from the names. “David Davis has been replaced by Dominic Raab.” There’s something weirdly apt about how neither of those names sound like real people – I could have said “William Billiam has been replaced by Jebediah Buuuuuurk” and really it would have made about as much sense. |
| There was a time when these devious political machinations, this game of Whitehall Russian roulette, would have satisfied a bloodlust, a thirst for bastards and chaos in the news, but I think we’re all just fatigued now. We’ve been given a little glimmer of something different by Gareth Southgate and his beautiful, pure football sons – wholesomeness, honesty, inflatable unicorn battles in swimming pools – and once you get a taste for that, it’s hard to go back to a stingy diet of barefaced lies and duplicity. Politics has always been hideous and cruel, but Southgate’s team have laid bare just how gross the whole thing is. I don’t want to go back. You can’t make me go back. | There was a time when these devious political machinations, this game of Whitehall Russian roulette, would have satisfied a bloodlust, a thirst for bastards and chaos in the news, but I think we’re all just fatigued now. We’ve been given a little glimmer of something different by Gareth Southgate and his beautiful, pure football sons – wholesomeness, honesty, inflatable unicorn battles in swimming pools – and once you get a taste for that, it’s hard to go back to a stingy diet of barefaced lies and duplicity. Politics has always been hideous and cruel, but Southgate’s team have laid bare just how gross the whole thing is. I don’t want to go back. You can’t make me go back. |
| Imagine if we didn’t have to. The pessimist in me says that the only thing politicians will learn from this is that The Common Rabble like The Football again, so they’ll try to get a photo of themselves doing the robot with Peter Crouch. But there’s a deeper lesson to learn from the country’s reaction to this World Cup run: people in England want to feel part of something bigger, to feel united. Not the kind of unity that Theresa May urges every three months whenever she’s run out of things to say to the press, which demands that people change who they are, ignore their differences and become one homogenous, compliant British blob. Rather, a kind of community that celebrates differences, that rewards integrity, that tells people it’s OK to make mistakes, to be afraid, to be emotional. | Imagine if we didn’t have to. The pessimist in me says that the only thing politicians will learn from this is that The Common Rabble like The Football again, so they’ll try to get a photo of themselves doing the robot with Peter Crouch. But there’s a deeper lesson to learn from the country’s reaction to this World Cup run: people in England want to feel part of something bigger, to feel united. Not the kind of unity that Theresa May urges every three months whenever she’s run out of things to say to the press, which demands that people change who they are, ignore their differences and become one homogenous, compliant British blob. Rather, a kind of community that celebrates differences, that rewards integrity, that tells people it’s OK to make mistakes, to be afraid, to be emotional. |
| This is a diverse, different England team who are open about their struggles – look at Danny Rose’s frank interview before the tournament about his battle against depression, or Raheem Sterling’s beautiful essay about growing up in Jamaica. Not only are they redefining what it means to be English in 2018, they’re redefining how we should treat each other and ourselves – with respect, with humour (I’m thinking Jamie Vardy asking Harry Maguire how big his head is midway through an official interview), and with honesty. | This is a diverse, different England team who are open about their struggles – look at Danny Rose’s frank interview before the tournament about his battle against depression, or Raheem Sterling’s beautiful essay about growing up in Jamaica. Not only are they redefining what it means to be English in 2018, they’re redefining how we should treat each other and ourselves – with respect, with humour (I’m thinking Jamie Vardy asking Harry Maguire how big his head is midway through an official interview), and with honesty. |
| As politics descends into recrimination and tribalism, the England football team have given the country an identity, but one which is inclusive, not proscriptive. There is no typical English person – this England side show that England should change to fit you, not the other way around. Our differences aren’t grounds for exclusion from a shared national identity – they are at its core. If only that footballing lesson could be learned by our politicians. I guess we’ll have to settle for empty soundbites and St George’s flags in their Twitter handles instead. | As politics descends into recrimination and tribalism, the England football team have given the country an identity, but one which is inclusive, not proscriptive. There is no typical English person – this England side show that England should change to fit you, not the other way around. Our differences aren’t grounds for exclusion from a shared national identity – they are at its core. If only that footballing lesson could be learned by our politicians. I guess we’ll have to settle for empty soundbites and St George’s flags in their Twitter handles instead. |
| • Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer and occasional performer | • Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer and occasional performer |
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