I’m not in general a fan of slogan t-shirts, but I own two that I am fond of. The first, which I seem to remember I bought around the time of my 40th birthday, reads: ‘So far, this is the oldest I have ever been.’ This is a sentiment that is newly true, and strangely uplifting, every time I put the shirt on. I am even considering being buried in it, having first crossed out the opening two words.
The second bears the slogan: ‘If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls**t’, a philosophy that, if my memory serves me correctly, has served me well for about 63 years.
As Tuesday comes round again, and I find myself sitting facing a blank screen, I am trying to harness the power of the message of that second t-shirt, because the subject I am juggling with this week is particularly challenging. I’m fairly confident that my readership this week (in fact, most weeks) falls into two groups: those who are passionately knowledgeable about the subject, and those who know nothing and care less about it. In each week’s post, I attempt to find a way to ignite the interest of the second group while bluffing my way through with the first group.
This week, that dual task presents an even bigger challenge than usual, because my subject is football (as Group 1 know it) or soccer (for the benefit of many of those in Group 2). What you need to know at this point is that I belong in Group 2. I don’t pretend to know how that happened. I grew up in a football family, in a football community, surrounded by friends who were football fans. I played as a child – never well but never embarrassingly badly; in pick-up games, I would be chosen by one or other captain around the halfway mark of the selection process. However, I was always much more interested in playing, or watching, tennis or cricket than football.
Yet here I am, about to talk football. Or not, possibly. If you are expecting me to write about the World Cup, then you will be disappointed. Instead, I’m writing about a four-part TV drama series, James Graham’s adaptation for the BBC of his stage play: Dear England.
I first need to give the (essentially factual) background to the story. [Group 1 can skip the next three paragraphs.]
In the Euro 1996 semifinals, England footballer Gareth Southgate missed the crucial sudden-death penalty, crashing England out of the tournament and cementing decades of national footballing anxiety. Twenty years later, Southgate is unexpectedly appointed as the caretaker manager of a deeply fractured, media-battered, and underperforming England squad. Recognizing that the team is crippled by a historical fear of failure and the weight of public expectation, Southgate introduces sports psychologist Pippa Grange. Together, they challenge the traditional, aggressive culture of the dressing room and encourage the young players to face their fears, keep emotional journals, and talk openly about their vulnerabilities. This new psychological framework frees the team, culminating in an unexpected, joyful run to the semifinals at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The second half of the narrative deals with the mounting pressure of success and the inevitable intrusion of the real world. Heading into the Euro 2020 tournament, the team has evolved into a powerful symbol of inclusive national unity. However, England loses the final at home on penalties, and the three young black players who missed their kicks are subjected to vicious racist abuse online.
The drama tracks Southgate and his squad navigating this cultural backlash, leading into the highly controversial 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The story ultimately reaches a thematic resolution during the tournament’s quarter-final exit. When captain Harry Kane misses a crucial penalty that knocks England out, he isn’t vilified by his teammates or left isolated on the pitch. Instead, the team instantly rallies around him, offering the immediate emotional support, protection and love that Southgate himself never received in 1996.
While the team does not bring home a literal trophy, the narrative concludes that Southgate successfully rewrote England’s toxic cultural script—proving that true strength is found in recognition of vulnerability, compassion, and collective resilience.
It is almost impossible to over-estimate the degree to which identifying with the England football team contributes to English national identity, or the degree to which obsession with the fortunes of the team dominates the British media. The title of the play and TV series is the salutation of an open letter that Southgate wrote to the nation and published in the sporting press after the racist backlash that followed the missed penalties in the 2020 Euros.
He wrote: “what I want to speak about today is much bigger than football… Our players are role models. And, beyond the confines of the pitch, we must recognise the impact they can have on society. We must give them the confidence to stand up for their teammates and the things that matter to them as people…Why would you choose to insult somebody for something as ridiculous as the colour of their skin?… When England play, there’s much more at stake than [the result]. It’s about how we conduct ourselves on and off the pitch, how we bring people together, how we inspire and unite, how we create memories that last beyond the 90 minutes. That last beyond the summer. That last forever.”
All of this made the Southgate story a powerful vehicle for playwright James Graham to explore English male identity. In addition, he recognised how the story “describes a perfect narrative arc”. Film critic Mark Kermode, reviewing the TV series, aptly described the story as “a redemption narrative straight out of Shakespeare.” At that level, the series is very self-assured, and works very powerfully, even with a seven-day pause between episodes. I can only imagine the dramatic thrust of a two-hour play on stage, with a single interval,
The obligatory disclaimer screened before each episode of the TV series read: “This is a fictionalised account of the struggles and successes of England’s football teams, based on extensive research and interviews. It features characters inspired by some real-life individuals, and some composite characters entirely imagined by the author. Throughout, dialogue has been imagined by the writer.”
At the same time, of course, the documentary nature of the drama is very heavily emphasised. Joseph Fiennes plays Southgate, with the benefit of prosthetic teeth and facial hair, Southgate’s signature waistcoat and an accurate impersonation of voice and mannerisms. It isn’t always easy to distinguish the performance from the interspliced archive footage. Footage both of actual play, particularly the sudden-death penalty shootouts, and of fan reactions, on the stands, in the pubs and on the streets, add to the documentary feel.
At other times, the TV drama feels a little theatrical: for example, when the three black players take their penalties (against a black backdrop), or when Southgate takes a phone call while walking in the forest, and the caller ‘arrives’ to conduct the conversation in person as they walk side-by-side. These moments are slightly jarring, both because TV is a much more literal medium than theatre and because the series strives to emphasise its documentary credentials.
I want to mention two other telling details from the series. The first is an encounter between Gareth Southgate and then British Prime Minister John Major outside the England dressing room immediately after Southgate’s missed penalty in 1996. While attempting, unconvincingly, to console Southgate, Major frames the moment not as an individual failure, but as the last act of a summer that united the nation. He then mistakenly addresses Southgate as ‘Gary’, rather then ‘Gareth’. Much as this seems like a brilliant dramatic invention by the playwright, emphasising how out of touch the English establishment was with the mood of the nation and how isolated Southgate truly was at that moment, contemporary accounts attest that Major did actually make this clumsy gaffe.
The second detail is that, as Southgate rebuilds his team in preparation for the 2022 World Cup, the names of the ‘sacked’ players and those who are making their debut are displayed on screen, together with their legacy number – a unique, chronological number assigned to a player based on the exact order in which they made their debut for England. It is initially surprising to realise that Harry Kane, for example, England’s current captain, is #1207. I would intuitively have expected there to have been far more England players since the first international match in 1872. This detail emphasised, for me, the extraordinary achievement that each individual player’s selection represents.
As Southgate himself wrote in his Dear England letter: “The journey to earn an England cap is an incredibly difficult one, regardless of background or circumstance. Only around 1,200 players have represented England at senior men’s level. Ever. It’s a profound privilege. Don’t forget, many of our lads started out at Football League clubs like Barnsley, MK Dons and Sheffield United. Their backgrounds are humble. For them to make it to this point as one of the chosen few in England’s history … well, it simply doesn’t happen without pride. This is a special group. Humble, proud and liberated in being their true selves.”
Without ever losing its relentless focus on Southgate the man, and his difficult but ultimately liberating journey from penalty failure to national achievement, the series has interesting things to say about the English nation, and young English men, in the 21st Century. The individual players in Southgate’s England teams, and their cohesion or lack of it, are a microcosm of English society.
I have read accounts which suggest that, on stage, the play succeeded in giving theatregoers who were not football fans a sense of the passion, the community, the peaks and troughs of following a sporting journey unfolding before your eyes, while simultaneously giving football fans who were not afficionados of the theatre a sense of the passion, the community, the peaks and troughs of following a dramatic journey unfolding before your eyes. While that experience is unavoidably diluted on the small screen, I can attest that the drama succeeded in keeping not only me, but also Bernice, on the edge of our seats, and if you think I’m not a football fan then you should see Bernice!
If you’re in Group 2, and you’re still here, I’m flattered. If you’re in Group 1, and you’re still here, I’m stunned. I must find something a bit easier to tackle next week. Meanwhile, it is beginning to look suspiciously as though it might just be not entirely inconceivable – dare I say it – that it’s coming home.
I did see Dear England on the stage of the National Theatre. It was one of the most memorable and life-affirming experiences of my play-going life – and I’ve been to a lot of plays!