Les Misérables

By AM Wednesday, July 17, 2024

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Anthony McIntyre ⚽ In the end, even from the beginning, Peter Anderson called it right. England were excruciating throughout Euro 2024 and deservedly lost in the final to a vastly superior Spain.

This year, for the first time in over five decades, I foolishly thought England might just lift a trophy. After they reached the final in the last Euros and were unlucky to go down to France in the Qatar World Cup, I abandoned a habit of a lifetime and opted to back them in this one. Thankfully I am not a gambler, a fool and his money being easily parted. 

No point invoking a faux principle about the English as perfidious Albion. Being an avid, at times rabid, Liverpool supporter, I love English soccer. Always have. During the desolate years of the blanket protest, without access to television, newspapers or radio, I, along with other aficionados of the beautiful game, still managed to follow the English soccer scene. Sometimes the screws on nightguard journeying through the yard - who did not work the protest blocks and were not as hostile - would tell us the results. Occasionally an orderly would do likewise. H5 always seemed to be abreast of the scorelines from all the games and would shout them across the sterile areas between their block and ours once the evening calm had settled on the prison.

Myself and Ronan hit Dublin for the game. Andrew had come up to Drogheda earlier in the tournament for a session in which we watched two games. Paddy couldn't make it this time as he was camping. Les, Andrew and a Croatian friend, Zelemér joining us for the very last game of the soccer season. Our firm was bulked out by a friend of Les - another Les - just to complicate matters! Somebody quipped that our party was the Independent Workers Union on tour!

Meaghers was a touch noisy as the Galway fans celebrated their progress to the All-Ireland GAA final where they will meet Armagh. Loud but not boisterous, nobody begrudged them their party mood. We had great seats in right in front of the big screen. 

Having drank Tequila every day of my sojourn in Majorca, I opted to go on the dry, so restricted myself to a couple of pints of Guinness Zero. The alcohol was not missed in the slightest and I will now stay off it until the FAI Cup final in November.  Our unrestricted view was perfecto! When both sides lined up for their respective national anthems, God Save The King was put on mute. We laughed but already it was a sign of where loyalties lay for this game.

The place went wild when Spain scored. I seemed to be the only one in the bar not to clap and wave my arms. When England scored, I maintained the demeanour. I didn't want to be as popular as a Zionist at a human rights convention. As the game edged towards extra time, the tension was palpable, exploding when Spain bagged what proved to be the decisive goal. I had been in a Majorcan pub for the Spain V Germany clash and the enthusiasm then did not match what was happening in Meaghers. Sheer joyousness is an apt way to describe it.

It is the arrogance of so many English soccer fans that has conditioned swathes across the globe to respond in similar fashion to the woes of the England national soccer squad. The endless bleating about a trophy won almost 70 years ago, so far back only one player who took to the field on that day in 1966 is still alive. The sense of entitlement that the European champions trophy is coming home when it had never been in England to begin with. Then the violence that often erupts when England fans are abroad. For these reasons above any other, there is never good will expressed towards the England football squad. The English monarchy is much more palatable to the Irish than the English soccer team. 

Now that they have come home but the trophy hasn't, the blame game driven by that sense of entitlement continues from where it had started with the opening game against Serbia. Had somebody predicted when Gareth Southgate took over the reins that England would have progressed so far under his leadership - a semi final and quarter final in the World Cup, runners up in two successive European finals - they would have been dismissed as off their trolley. Still, they stumbled and fumbled their way to a final and it would have been a travesty for them to have won. It remains hard not to feel that Southgate's preference would be to have fielded Pickford, nine Harry Maguires across the backline and Harry Kane up front. An English winning formula. 

At the heel of the hunt, when the rubber hit the road England were simply outpaced and outplayed by the team that deserved to win. Arguably the best collection of individuals in world football, they play like a team of cats. Nobody yet has discovered how to herd cats.

One word to describe their overall showing - Miserable.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.