When did you notice they stopped taking the knee? Did you even notice? Don’t worry, we’ll get back to that.
Gareth Southgate’s final attempt to coach the England men’s team to a tournament victory took on Sisyphean proportions after losing the final of Euro 2024 to Spain. Yet what marked his era as manager reached far beyond the pitch. A tale of a team trying to influence and ride the wave of a country that was changing – but not always changing fast enough.
Popular consensus paints Southgate’s greatest achievement as changing the experience of playing for England. What had previously brought little more than suffocating angst and pressure became one to be relished and enjoyed. Friendly darts contests with the press, players being encouraged to be candid with them, they found wearing the shirt a more pleasant experience, avatars of contemporary England.
Euro 2020 (played in 2021) was England’s definitive men’s tournament of this era. The summer of Southgate and Sweet Caroline.
Three years on, it’s difficult to recollect just how dizzying that summer was. Every aspect of life was framed through the prism of the Covid-19 pandemic (which isn’t over) and resultant lockdowns. Emotions were felt more acutely. Many of us were emotionally raw, and were of no mind to bite our tongues on the issues affecting our individual and collective lives.