One problem with writing a diary for this particular week is that there is an event at the end of it that will change the character of all that came before. I’m writing this first entry before I know the result of the Euro 2024 final, so it feels like diarising in the dark. I know that describing, for example, how things felt on 6 July – the night when England scored five penalties to beat Switzerland in the quarter-final – is pointless, as an experience that was, at the time, euphoric will become in memory melancholic if we don’t win the tournament; conversely, it will be more upbeat than it was at the time if we do. All memories will shift, added by joy or subtracted by sadness, depending on the result.
Watch with Skinner
Something I’ve been wrestling with is the amount of people inviting me to places – to their houses, to pubs, to parties – to watch the football. I never want to. I am too anxious if I watch it at someone else’s house, as I worry that I will not be sat, in relation to the TV, at the exact the angle I want to be, or there will be someone who’s not entirely focused on the game who wants to talk to me, or – worst of all – someone will get up to go to the toilet and block my view just as a goal goes in.
I am happy to watch at home with my son, my brother and Frank Skinner, who lives on my road. Some may know that when we were doing Fantasy Football League, our TV comedy show about football, we were flat-sharing IRL, but fewer people know that I have lived in two houses in different places since then and Frank has bought houses on the same streets. It’s like a very expensive form of stalking.
It does however make for an easy and anxiety-free football-watching experience; from our many years together, I know that Frank isn’t going to go to the toilet or try to speak to me at the wrong time.
Three Lions on a shirt
As England have progressed, more people have been saying to me in the street, “Dave, is it coming home?” It’s strange how that line from “Three Lions”, originally inspired by Euro 1996 being hosted by England, is now reflexively understood as code for: “We’re going to win.” It reached something of a zenith at the Nato summit when Keir Starmer, who was sat next to Joe Biden, was asked by a journalist, “Is it coming home?” Starmer said, “it looks like it”, but my concern is that Americans don’t know this code, and Biden really doesn’t need any more confusing. Particularly not now that an assassination attempt on Donald Trump has led to photos, instantly iconic, of Biden’s rival as a bloodied but unbowed hero – one with the US flag flying in the background has, I think, a touch of the statue of Iwo Jima to it – which seems to all but seal the Republican’s future victory.
As usual, when England do well at these tournaments I get asked to do a lot of TV and radio. I seem to become, for example, if not the Today programme’s football correspondent – I think they have one of those – the bloke equipped to answer how the country is feeling. Prior to the final, I was on twice in one week. Each time, I have forced the presenters to mention that I also have a memoir out, but, throwing PR caution to the joyful winds, I may not bother with that if we’ve won.
Red-letter day
Sunday 14 July – AKA a big day for sport, beginning at 2pm with the Wimbledon final. I like tennis, and am unspeakably glad that Carlos Alcaraz doesn’t play football for his country.
The sanctification of Southgate
Post-defeat and the hurt goes on. Only sport – or perhaps only England and football – can do this, to puncture so absolutely and abruptly, so nationally, all the hope, joy and energy that seemed tangibly there only moments earlier. Spain were obviously the better side, a team that shows signs of being a truly great one. Meanwhile, over some years now, the sanctification of Gareth Southgate – and he is clearly a lovely person, who has improved the culture and psychology that used to surround the team – has ignored the fact that he lacks the ruthlessness, the tactical flexibility and, above all, the creative football imagination required to win a major tournament. Once Gareth, ever the decent man, does the decent thing, the FA should phone Jürgen Klopp immediately. Still, as Frank said to me at the final whistle, 60 years of hurt scans better than 58. I shall absolutely be insisting on mentioning the memoir on the radio.
[See also: The gruelling campaign is over. Now we have a country to sort]
David Baddiel’s “My Family: The Memoir” is published by Fourth Estate
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This article appears in the 17 Jul 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The American Berserk