News I'm an England fan and this is what I think Gareth Southgate must do next By James Mitchinson Published 15th Jul 2024, 10:23 BST Updated 15th Jul 2024, 10:33 BST Comment Watch more of our videos on Shots! and live on Freeview channel 276 Visit Shots! now Gareth Southgate has to go. For the good of England, the fortunes of the national team and for the mood of the nation, the Harrogate-based man must step aside. That’s what I expect to read in the chat forums, on social media and perhaps in one or two tabloid outlets that should know better, and, as an England fan of some two-score years I can understand the frustration.
The knee-jerk instinct to find the reason we cannot get over the winning line and to quickly blame Gareth Southgate . Thirty four years ago, sitting on my parents’ living room floor, as a boy that had no internet, no devices, no distractions, football was my everything, I cried until I fell asleep when the Germans dived their way to victory over England and Paul Gascoigne. I was utterly crestfallen in a way I can’t describe.
When Luciano Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma whispers its opening sweet nothings with my ears, honestly, if the moment is right it can bring me to my knees and that devastation, that disappointment and all of those emotions I’ve carried around with me ever since. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Sign up to our daily The Scarborough News Today newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to The Scarborough News, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues.
Please try again later. Submitting..
. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Notice and Terms of Service apply. If you’re not me, or one of those like me, you’ll perhaps think I’m being hysterical for the sake of some cheap copy for newsprint.
But I can assure you that I’m not alone in feeling this way, though I think your age and circumstances had to sync with the Italia ‘90 event in order for your being to be implanted with this lifelong trauma that won’t go away. England manager Gareth Southgate leaving the team hotel in Berlin, Germany. Gareth Southgate and England tasted defeat in a second successive European Championship final as Spain triumphed 2-1 in Berlin.
Picture date: Friday July 12, 2024. PA Photo. See PA Story SOCCER England.
Photo credit should read: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire. RESTRICTIONS: Use subject to restrictions. Editorial use only, no commercial use without prior consent from rights holder.
But, you know, I am now a dad to a ten-year-old and whilst I saw him clearly entertained and interested in the England v Spain final last night, I didn’t see him enthralled and invested in the same way that we were in 1990. Back then, the players were once bricklayers and electricians, they drove Rovers and Ford Granadas (Ghias, of course!) and they drank beer and ate fish and chips on a Friday night. In other words, they were just like us and we were just like them, and they were our heroes because of that.
And because they were just like us, that meant to ten-year-old kids that one day we could be just like them, too, and that was inspiring. It was uplifting and it was motivating. We left for primary school early so that we could play football in the playground.
We ran home from school like athletes in order to wolf down our Findus tea and get on the park for a kickabout. We re-enacted pieces of commentary that I still have word-for-word now, as we jinked and turned our way through on makeshift goals, slotting a tatty Mitre Delta between bobbly, holed jumpers laid on the grass. So there is little wonder that when we got so close and our then boy-wonder, Gazza, was ruled out of the final come what may, that children like me were brought to tears.
Nessun dorma. Nessun dorma. None shall sleep.
None shall sleep. I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad And here we are again. Only now, no England player could build you a house nor give it a re-wire. They drive Ferraris and they live in mansion houses.
Modern footballers aren’t plucked from the grassroots, they’re designed and engineered in academies. We can’t touch them, we can’t be them, we can’t relate to them. They’re movie stars kept in glass cabinets.
None shall sleep, none shall sleep. Not even you, oh princess. In your cold bedroom, watching the stars that tremble with love and with hope.
Love. And hope. Lyrics from Nessun dorma but once the essence of football, an essence that has been stolen from us by money, by systems and strategies and by corporate greed.
Quarantined away from the humble fan, made a freakshow by the money men of television ...
and I still love it. I love it because it’s, well, better. I love it because it is no longer 11 strong men kicking the hell out of each other.
It’s now 11 Lionesses finessing their way to victory. It’s 11 boys - Spain’s Lamine Yamal was 16-years-old when Euro ‘24 started - and men on the same field of play, there because the rules of the modern game protect children from meat-headed men so that skills and merit trump muscle. It isn’t ‘a man’s game’ as the dinosaurs will tell you.
It’s the people’s game and I’ll tell you something for sure, we have Gareth Southgate to thank for at least some of that. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Since he took the helm in 2016, he has dismantled the barriers between his players and the press. Open training sessions, honest media conferences, frank exchanges.
He has flirted with more success than any England manager ever, yet those flirtations of his have not led to a relationship with winning. And so the questions as to why will reverberate around tap rooms and living rooms just as they will the FA board room: is Gareth Southgate the man to take England to glory? I’ll level with you, I don’t know. I’m no closer to being an elite football coach than I am an astronaut.
I’m not even a proper England fan; I’ve only seen an England side play inside a stadium once, so I can only consider myself an armchair expert. So, should Gareth step aside? The only manager in football history to have lost two Euros finals. A man who has transformed the England set up from in-crowd cliques to collective camaraderie.
A man who repeatedly gets us to the brink of euphoria, whose compassion, intellect, humour and humility guide his decision-making? A manager who seems to be an analyst away from glory; a nutritionist away from victory; a psychologist, coach and strategist away from invincibility. Well, I don’t think so. Those who scream ‘get Jurgen Klopp’; ‘get Pep Guardiola’ as far as I’m concerned don’t understand international football.
It is one thing to nurture an intense style of play amongst a group of players whose lives you control from top to bottom every single day and quite another to galvanise individuals, whose day jobs make them mortal enemies, and create an elite, winning unit. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Yet Gareth Southgate, Steve Holland, his assistant manager, and the team they have assembled came closer than Italy, Germany, Portugal or France. In 2020, they came closer than Spain.
So, again, should Gareth Southgate go? Quite frankly, no, and even when he does it must be his and his decision alone. He has earned the right and the privilege to be in control of his departure, and when he does decide the time is right, we will all owe Gareth Southgate a debt of thanks. Related topics: Gareth Southgate England Harrogate Spain Comment Comment Guidelines National World encourages reader discussion on our stories.
User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting..
