This is how it feels to be English
Words: Tom Reed
Images: Nico Walter
The game was coming to a 1-1 rest.
The football as bedraggled, Grolsch soaked and stroopwaffel crumb covered as the lone England fans in the spilled Tango bottle sea of Oranje in Dortmund.
Dutch techno rung in the ears but England had been the better team.
Danny Baker had gone too early on X, posting “Gareth Southgate is lucky to be in charge of a good squad in a piss poor euros. He has done nothing to elevate a piss poor team. They have achieved piss poor status which is about his mark”.
It was another own goal and gaffe from the TV personality whose 90’s VHS tapes took the same name.
Southgate sending on Ollie Watkins to lift the England team with a 90th minute winner was as inevitable as George Graham banging his head on the Arsenal dugout, a meat and drink comedy clip on seminal 90s blooper tapes.
We shouldn’t be too mad at Baker though in his actual Euro 96 shirt worn by the actual Gazza because Baker is us and us him. Good humoured prats that know too little and talk too much and to whom England represents so much more than it actually does.
Slagging off Southgate is a national pastime because we have so few other ways to vent about modern life. While the European Union took the brunt of blame for the 2008 global financial crash, Gareth Southgate gets it in the neck for all our worldly worries.
Can’t pay the mortgage? Gareth Southgate is too negative.
Tesco Meal Deal is going up to £3.90 and they are out of that Green Machine smoothie? Gareth Southgate is a Championship manager coaching at international level.
©Nico Walter/ Terrace Edition. Netherlands vs England. Dortmund.
The dial is broken on the washing machine so you have to spend half an hour tricking it into going on to a wash? Well, Southgate will never take Kane off because he has no other tactics.
Except he did and Aston Villa’s Watkins slotted home the ball with a take which was worth trying to spell the word nonchalantly.
Watkins delivered the kind of thoroughly level-headed interview afterwards that disarmed all the ill-feeling that lurks around the England setup.
“I’ve been waiting for that moment for..weeks” said Watkins, not his whole life, not since he was a kid kicking a ball against a wall, but weeks. He’d probably only thought about it since yesterday, being that assured he could hit the net when required.
Strip away the divisive politics, the snake oil salesmen, put the Charlatans on Spotify instead of listening to charlatan rants in cheap tweed and England can be a Watkins-cool country.
That Foden shot bended our consciousness as well as the air. It didn’t matter that it hit the post because the next one will go in.
The win was for the supporters who spend years saving up for international football tournaments. Who travel thousands of miles and spend more hours searching Airbnb as they do actually downing pints.
The media noise of stop the boat chants and the odd chair through the air is just that. As jarring as a 2 Unlimited tune stuck on repeat but now we can just hit skip.
And we are all supporters, Baker is a supporter, Southgate is a supporter and when we get that clarity of being kinder to each other, an energy is harnessed that means we can leave the green smoothies on the shelf, have a sip of water.
Evian not Highland Spring, don’t do yourself a disservice.
If we lose the final, it’ll all happen again at the next tournament but with each goal we remember how it feels to be English.
This is how it feels to be English
This is how it feels to be tall
This is how it feels when
you’re so fucking good at football
1,2,3,4
©Nico Walter/ Terrace Edition. Netherlands vs England. Dortmund.
Tom is Terrace Edition Editor and can be found on X: @tomreedwriting
You can find Nico on X: @nico5381. His website is www.stadion-erlebnisse.de
