The celebrated poet TS Eliot created a character who lamented, “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons”, a metaphor for lost opportunities and what-might-have-beens. A century or so later and many English men and women of a certain age feel we have measured out ours via the tournament exits of England football teams.
Some remember as far back as Peter Bonetti’s mishaps against West Germany in 1970, just before my own emotional engagement in the great quest to “bring it home” got underway.
We have lived through traumas a-plenty since then – from the Brooking-Keegan combo misfiring by a whisker at a crucial moment in 1982, to Gazza’s tears in 1990 and on through an under-performing “golden generation” to the tournament nadir of getting eliminated from the Euros by Iceland in 2016.
Back in 1996, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner coined the phrase “30 years of hurt” to describe the three decades of failure that followed our solitary World Cup win. It is getting close to six decades now.
And yet for some years we have been on an upswing that has already banished the mood of fatalism that had set in at one time. Not only have the fantastic England women’s team been winner and then runner-up in their last two tournaments, but the men have been knocking on the door of greatness too.
Semi-finalists at the World Cup of 2018, losing finalists in the Covid-delayed Euros of 2021. Now, for the first time, they are into a major final on foreign soil. It’s been a slow burn, this one. But on Wednesday evening England were simply magnificent in overcoming the Netherlands. It turned out that during the hard-to-watch earlier rounds, Gareth Southgate had been successfully instilling not just a great team spirit to keep us chugging onwards, but a great whole-squad spirit.
This has been England’s secret superpower. Almost every substitute used in this tournament has made a crucial difference, from Ivan Toney against Slovakia to penalty maestro Trent Alexander-Arnold against Switzerland and Cole Palmer and Ollie Watkins against the Dutch. And there has been no petulance among the bigger names being “hooked” to make space for fresher, speedier legs.
People have said that Southgate struggles against ultra-elite rival coaches in the biggest games. Arguably, he was outsmarted by Italy’s Roberto Mancini three years ago at Wembley. But not so by Ronald Koeman in mid-week – and by the way our “soft” penalty was clearly belated payback for a nefarious incident of “hurt” that man inflicted on us during his playing days in 1994.
Approaching tomorrow’s final, I find that although the idea of winning the tournament and becoming European champions is a magnificent prospect to savour, the curse that many of us had come to believe afflicted England – Hand of God, penalty shoot-out agonies, harsh sendings-off at crucial moments – is broken anyway.
At the start of each new tournament, the next generation of my own family sees no reason why England won’t progress deep into the competition or have a decent chance of winning it. That this is the new normal is partly down to Southgate and partly down to huge improvements in our youth football system. Phil Foden, for example, is already a world champion having been a key part of England’s under-17s World Cup victory in 2017.
Spain, our opponents in the final, have been sensational throughout the tournament, proving too good for the established heavyweights of Italy, Germany and France even as we laboured against the likes of Denmark, Slovenia and Slovakia. Our English lads will need to give the performances of their lives just to live with the Spaniards, who have added a killer instinct for goal to their traditional slick inter-passing game.
Yet while they have the fluency, we have the willpower and the physical power too. We have gone through this tournament like Italy did in the World Cup of 1982, or Germany have done in numerous tournaments that have seen them lift the trophy at the end – just doing enough to get past the early rounds before exploding into life in the later stages.
For the final, my house will be draped in the St George’s Cross that always comes out on these occasions. But the local Indian and Pakistani shopkeepers who would fail Norman Tebbit’s “cricket test” are just as gung-ho for England at football.
If we do it this time, joy will be unconfined across every class and ethnicity. If we don’t then it will be a disappointment but to have made another final will still be a source of major national pride. I shan’t be adding it to that dismal list of “hurts”.
So forget the fatalism and the coffee spoons too and just believe: it’s coming home.
Content Source: www.express.co.uk