The Nation Doesn't Expect

My good friend Nick Roberts recently started up a football blog at http://inoffthebar.org/ which you should all check out. I wrote a little piece on the England football team for him this week - you can view it here. As always, any comments, criticisms or - especially - praise :) are always welcomed. I'll be back with another poker blog in the next few days but until then...

The Nation Doesn't Expect

I’m one of those rare football fans that has never really supported a team. Sure, I’ve had dalliances with Leeds United, Chesterfield FC and – due to a man-crush on King Jose Mourinho – Chelsea, but I’ve never felt the same passion for the club game that all my friends have. Instead, my love of football has always been directly linked with the most miserable, frustrating and infuriating football team of them all: England. 

Every one of my defining memories of football involves England. I was five years old when I saw tears streaming down my brother’s face in the summer of 1990. I thought someone had died. I later learnt the tears were due to some dude with a mullet attempting to revolutionise the space race.

Six years later and I was loving Euro 96. My best friend Rob and I alternated going round to each other’s houses to watch the England matches. It started off well with Shearer’s goal against Switzerland before that quickly deteriorated into one of the dullest games of all time. Then Gazza killed the Scots, we battered the Dutch and Psycho Pearce finally found his smile again to knock out the Spanish.
 

So onto the semi-final of all semi-finals against the hated Germans. It’s one of those games where you can literally remember every single minute. It had that rare ingredient that can turn some football matches into unforgettable pieces of history; drama. As Shearer headed us into the lead within five minutes, my young naïve self thought that life was always going to be this great – that football was always going to be this great. Little did I know that Gary Neville’s cross, Alan’s stooped little header and his eternally crap ‘one hand in the air, everyone say yay’ celebration was as good as it was going to get football-wise – EVER. As soon as that bastard Andreas Moller tucked away his winning penalty with stereotypically Germanic aplomb (and had the audacity to strut too, grrrr!), I bombed out of the living room and wept on the stairs. The next day at school everyone heard about me crying and proceeded to verbally batter me like only 11-year olds can do. I just couldn’t understand why the others didn’t care as much.

It's all downhill from here....

1998 was basically the same, except with a different opponent. I missed Michael Owen’s goal because I was having a wee. Although the onset of alcohol has likely increased my enjoyment of football in the long-term, a much neglected aspect of beer is that it forces you to relieve yourself during some of the most iconic memories in sporting history. Owen’s goal, Di Canio pushing the ref, Zidane’s headbutt – all missed because I was having a tiddle.

It’s probably best to skip over the Keegan and Erikkson years. Besides ‘Germany 5-1’ does anything truly stick out? Be honest with yourself and you’ll say ‘not really’. Keegan sucked. Erikkson was what he was – a fine manager of a good-but-never-great England team. We specialised in competence and never excellence, hence our prolific run of quarter-finals. Looking back it would have been better if we’d just got battered 8-0 in every World Cup game instead of limping out in the QFs, at least that way the press would have some truly interesting things to write about. 

Let's not even mention McClaren.

Did this really happen?

No, the last great hope for England fans was Fabio Capello and his voyage to South Africa and the 2010 World Cup. All the ingredients were in place – a great qualifying campaign, one of the world’s best players in Wayne Rooney and a manager who absolutely, positively TOOK. NO. SHIT.
 

It was a disaster. We won one match. Against Slovenia. Even while watching Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal against Germany it was impossible to really summon up any great feelings of anger or injustice. Sure, it should have been a goal. But then they’d have just gone on to beat us 5-2 anyway. They were great, we sucked. 

What does the future hold for England? I’m not going to lie, it will probably look much like the last 25 years. Miserable. Come Brazil 2014 there will be a lot more toddlers in England wondering who died as their brother storms up to his room, tears in his eyes, muttering ‘fucking Andy Carroll’.