GAZZA TAKES A NATION FROM THE RIDICULOUS TO THE SUBLIME
Let’s be clear: as a nation, England has been guilty of, and despised for, multiple crimes across its history. And the Scottish, Welsh and Irish have more reason than most to harbour anti-English feeling which rarely strays too far from the surface, even when benignly expressed as individual patriotism.
By contrast, during the post-imperial half of the 20th century, the English largely wore an apologetic air and what The Independent’s Bryan Appleyard called a “chain of guilt that has been hung around the English neck”.
“Think how hard it now is to be patriotically English,” he wrote in June 1996. “Professional Scots, Welsh, Irish, French and Americans are everywhere, flaunting their idiosyncrasies, but the English cower, occasionally making fun of themselves.” For many people in England, waving a flag was an embarrassing relic of colonialism or hooliganism – until Euro 96 and a seismic Saturday afternoon in the Wembley sunshine, that is.
The week didn’t start well for England. The press piled in after their draw with Switzerland, printing paparazzi shots of Teddy Sheringham, Jamie Redknapp and Sol Campbell swigging away inside an Essex nightclub. At England’s Bisham Abbey HQ, Venables upped the verbal ante, accusing the team’s critics of treason.
“It’s awful but we’re getting hardened to it,” Venables told the press pack. “We just
