What are they doing? Twenty minutes of total rubbish, passing backwards and forwards, no ideas, no enterprise. That Thomas Tuchel is an idiot, why has he picked Noni Madueke? John Stones is bound to give it away. What has Tuchel got against Phil Foden or Cole Palmer, who were left at home. Now Norway have scored. I knew it – typical England.
And I had gone to bed at 7pm, setting the alarm for ten – at my age, I must be potty. This lot couldn’t beat Carlisle United. When we are half-decent, the back pages rave about his brilliance, his use of subs, but he clearly knows nowt.
Oh God, Norway are on top. Erling Haaland is bound to score in a minute. He’s done bugger all, but that’s when he’s most dangerous. I’m going to bed. I can’t stand it any more. Yes, I know the players are trying their best, they’re all knackered, but I’m giving up on the World Cup. Too draining, too annoying. Watching England is pure torture. I should have stayed in bed. Why do I bother?
Oh hold on, Jude has the ball. Oh my God, he’s only gone and scored… Oh, and another one. England must get in the semi-finals now.
England, I always had faith in you – what character, what energy, what endeavour. And that Tuchel, he is so clever – we are so lucky to have him, and Jude and Harry. Ingerland! I will open another bottle, even though it is one o’clock in the morning.
I have been on my own, watching all of England’s games – yet I haven’t been alone, not in my head. I am with every fan, past and present, following their country, going through the same contradictory emotions. The Argentines got through their quarter-final, but were outplayed by Switzerland for long periods, and were fortunate the Swiss went down to ten men.
Why do we put ourselves through this agony? Are we silly, pathetic, infantile? All true. It’s all for the few moments of joy and pride when the boys done good.
Alas, I can think of only a few moments during this World Cup when England has made my heart soar, when they played to what we like to think is their potential. But for Jude, where would we be?
And yet, we can’t go to bed, even when they are playing shite. Where there is life there is hope, so we tell ourselves. “You never died a winter yet,” my mother used to tell us.
What I did admire, after that Norway game, and after I dragged myself to bed at 1am, was to wake up six hours later to find the Sunday Times in my letterbox, with five pages on the game in the sport section and a front-page splash, including a well-written piece by Matthew Syed. How did they manage that, doing it so quickly in the middle of the night – writing, editing, printing and distributing?
And then, the contradictory thought. So what? When I was a lad, in the Fifties, beginning in journalism in Manchester, the Evening Chronicle managed five different regional editions an evening. And if you went to an actual match, you could buy the Pink’Un on the way home and get all the scores. And yet there were no computers or mobiles. Modern technology in some ways has slowed things down.
But thanks to it, I was able to go online and look up Erling Haaland’s real name. I had noticed when he was subbed off that on the back of his shirt it was not Haaland but Braut Haaland. Some mistake? Turns out Braut is his mother’s maiden name. Braut Haaland honours both his parents and is his real surname. Both were athletes – his father was a footballer, his mother a runner. So I did learn something, I realised, watching that quarter-final.
And another thought occurred: if England were to win it – har har – under Andy Burnham, we should expect him to take the credit. Just as Harold Wilson did in 1966, boasting that England only win the World Cup under Labour.
[Further reading: The transcendence of Thomas Tuchel]
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This article appears in the 15 Jul 2026 issue of the New Statesman, After Keir Starmer
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Subscribe here to commentFootball can be an addiction from the moment you go to your first live game or watch a team on the telly. I got hooked for real at Kenilworth Road Luton in September 1970 when I saw Luton beat Orient 4-0. Mark Lazarus played very well for Orient but we had Malcolm Macdonald and Alan Slough. A few weeks before, in the summer, I was hooked on England at the World Cup 1970 when we got beaten by West Germany 2-3 in extra time after being 2-0 up. Now that was gut wrenching. We never qualified again till 1982! After this world cup it’s back to League One with Luton Town! I have no idea why I do it. COYH!!!!!!