‘England are being propelled to glory by an unassailable moral authority’
Gareth Southgate’s England have right on their side and are an unstoppable moral force that could sweep Italy away in the Euro 2020 Final tonight, writes Simon Bristow
There are sometimes moments in sport when a team captures the zeitgeist and finds itself propelled to glory by a higher power that envelops their endeavour and helps to carry them over the line.
It simply becomes their time to win, and when the outcome is settled, their victory seems to have been predestined and just feels right.
One thinks of South Africa winning the Rugby World Cup in 1995, a year after Nelson Mandela was elected president.
Or of Manchester United becoming the first English club to win the European Cup in 1968, ten years after that dream was shattered by the tragedy of Munich.
A similar destiny surely now beckons for Gareth Southgate’s England at what will be an emotional Wembley tonight.
Like the Sprinkboks and Busby’s United before them, the Three Lions have the advantage of home soil and the incredible support that goes with it.
There are similarly a number of irresistible plot lines to which an England win would be the only satisfactory denouement.
One of these is the story of Southgate himself, who by leading England to victory would finally lay to rest the ghost of his penalty miss against Germany in a European Championship Semi-Final 25 years ago.
SUPPORT FOR THE ENGLAND MANAGER IN HORNSEA: Picture by Ian Coggan
That one unfortunate moment for him personally of course sits in the wider narrative of England’s dismal failure in major tournaments since the solitary World Cup win of 1966, which features a litany of missed penalties, red cards, and unfulfilled promise.
It is hard to think of another World Cup-winning nation whose fans have suffered so many miserable years of hurt since lifting the trophy. It really feels like this dam is ready to burst.
The history that has been such an unbearable burden to their predecessors seems to have been lifted from the young shoulders of this team.
It is a team that has already broken one spell just by reaching the last two, making tonight the first major final England have contested since Alf Ramsey’s Lions of 1966.
One of Southgate’s other achievements has been to transform perceptions of his role. What has long seemed like one of the most impossible jobs in sport now looks like one of its most attractive, brimming with possibility.
Then there is the squad, which has made itself remarkable not just by winning but by having a social conscience. This the players collectively and courageously decided to demonstrate by taking the knee as a defiant gesture of anti-racism.
It has created a unifying bond between the players that has so far carried all before it.
It is significant that the early boos with which taking the knee was greeted by a small section of fans now appear to have evaporated.
They have faced down the dissenters, and there is no doubt that in this context an England win would represent a triumph of hope over hate.
The world was changed by the murder of George Floyd in the US, and this England team recognises that.
Progressive forces across the globe are demanding racial justice and the England team are one of them.
This is what truly sets this group of players apart and gives them an unassailable moral authority.
Social media was awash with this sentiment last night, proving that Southgate’s England are already successful agents of change.
‘This squad have made clear they represent me’
Broadcaster and writer Rima Ahmed posted a picture of herself in an England shirt on Twitter, and wrote: “Never thought I’d wear this shirt but from standing for racial equality to feeding school kids, this squad have made clear they represent ME.”
Commenting on her post, NHS dentist Pramod Subbaraman said: “The legacy of this team may or may not be the Cup that they may or may not win.
“The legacy of this team will be the millions like Rima and I who have stayed away from the racist safe spaces of football and who now embrace this team and this game and that flag for the first time.”
Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy used the same platform to say: “Football terraces were scary places when I was a kid in Lancashire. Today it’s a different experience.
“And the values of this team expressed with confidence make football welcoming to me in a way I never felt before.”
All of this is in marked contrast to the response of the morally bankrupt fools running the country, who missed chance after chance to get onside and join the calls for unity and justice.
They will not only find themselves on the wrong side of history, they have excluded themselves from sharing any of the success and joy this team has brought.
Whether he has the mental capacity to appreciate it or not, the success of this England squad is excruciatingly embarrassing for Boris Johnson.
Because the further England have gone in this tournament, the greater the gulf between the shared principles of the team and its supporters and the Conservative Ministers and MPs who declined every opportunity to fully support them.
In its ranks is Marcus Rashford, who, to date, has twice forced the Prime Minister into humiliating U-turns on the Dickensian social issue of feeding hungry children.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Once it became clear the team might actually go on to win it, the intellectually-challenged Johnson decided to festoon Downing Street with England flags.
Always a grubby opportunist, he seemed to forget he is supposed to be the Prime Minister of the whole of the United Kingdom. Has he got any idea how this image will be greeted in Scotland?
Also among the ranks of the myopic is the migrant-obsessed Priti Patel, who seems to be relentlessly pursuing the strange and disturbing career goal of becoming the most vicious Home Secretary in living memory.
Attacks on the democratic right to protest and undermining the rights of some of the most vulnerable people in the world – refugees, asylum seekers, and people who are prepared to risk their lives for a better one – are among her policy priorities at a time of climate crisis and global pandemic.
“Gesture politics” was what Patel said of the England team taking the knee. She also said fans had a ”choice” whether or not to boo the team for doing so.
Patel then had the gall to tweet a picture of herself celebrating England’s Semi-Final win over Denmark.
She also saw fit to congratulate the team she had criticised and undermined. Gesture politics indeed.
“Football’s coming home”, Patel signed off with, desperately trying to clamber aboard the bandwagon, where she will no doubt be hoping for a warmer welcome than that she affords children crossing the Channel in inflatable dinghies.
Also drinking from the milk of human kindness is her Conservative colleague, the “Red Wall” MP Lee Anderson, who was so troubled by the team’s stance he is boycotting all of England’s games, an act of self-flagellation he says will even extend to today’s Final.
You simply have to laugh at such stupidity.
Another refreshing change Southgate’s England have brought about it is creating a new space for themselves, where the use of Churchillian and other warlike rhetoric to motivate the troops is no longer appropriate.
The softly spoken words of the manager are enough.
There is, however, one line from Shakespeare’s Henry V that does seem newly apposite when speaking of Southgate’s men, whatever the outcome tonight:
‘This story shall the good man teach his son’