Do you know who I feel sorry for? The National Theatre. Next March it opens a new run of Dear England, James Graham’s tribute to the England football manager Gareth Southgate. As things stand, the script will need the intervention of a sensitivity reader.
Southgate’s star is falling. After England’s nil-nil draw against Slovenia on Tuesday, English fans booed and threw empty beer cups at him. This wasn’t defeat (England proceeded to the knockout stages of the European Championships); but it still felt like betrayal.
Maybe the most bitter divorces follow the most intense love affairs. The British public once felt so let down by Tony Blair precisely because it had been so enamoured of him. So too with Southgate.
He hasn’t been just another England manager struggling with the so-called impossible job. After taking charge in 2016, he became the sweetheart of the nation — or at least of its centrist dads. He showed that you can wear a waistcoat when you’re not at a wedding or a snooker table. Now he risks putting us off knitted polo shirts forever.
Our love affair was born of a particular moment. By 2016, England fans had all hope squeezed out of them. Southgate used the low expectations to relax his players. “We really probably are not going to win this World Cup,” his character tells them in Dear England.
It was also a moment when Conservative MPs were going gently insane, fuming about things like the BBC’s annual report having only one union jack. Southgate articulated a non-Brexity patriotism. He backed his players’ support for social change, writing: “I have never believed that we should just stick to football.”
Results were secondary, but good: England made the World Cup semi-finals and then the final of Euro 2020. They even won a penalty shootout.
The problem is that fans now want more. They’re no longer satisfied by players who take the knee and frolic in swimming pools on inflatable unicorns. They’re ready to win. And they suspect Southgate is tactically inadequate.
England have the players of the season for Europe’s top two leagues: Manchester City’s Phil Foden and Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham. Yet their build-up play has been as slick as Joe Biden’s debate answers; their passes as accurately targeted as Donald Trump’s fundraising emails. We’ve gone from Dear England to dear me.
Still, the abuse hurled at Southgate is part of a sad trend. In this week’s TV debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, an audience member asked mockingly: “Are you two really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?” Does everything have to be so coarse, so complaining?
But it’s not over. At the 1990 World Cup, England drew their first game. The Daily Mail asked: “Have you ever witnessed a more embarrassing exhibition of wasted energy and spilled adrenalin in the history of ball games?” England went on memorably to reach the semis. Their manager, Bobby Robson, ended up knighted and adored.
Southgate’s team may not be as bad as they have looked. In three matches at the Euros, they have given away no clear-cut chances from open-play; the only goal they’ve conceded is a 30-yard strike. “Defences, rather than attacks, tend to win tournaments, and England have actually been very solid,” tactical analyst Michael Cox has said.
Like Robson, Southgate has maintained his dignity. While the Netherlands’ coach Ronald Koeman has blamed his players for not running in the right positions, Southgate has only blamed himself. On Tuesday, the beer cups landed near him only because he had gone over to thank the fans. You feel sure he will never sell out. But if the team loses on Sunday against Slovakia, it’s possible that neither will Dear England.
