History of English Football – How England was bereft from having a sensual relationship with the ball that the libertines (Brazil, Netherlands) have.
The essence of the relationship between fancy foreigners and doughty Englishmen was captured by Sir Walter Scott in his novel The Talisman, written in 1825 and set during the 3rd Crusade.
The key moment comes when English king Richard the Lionheart meets Muslim hero Saladin. They proceed to show off their martial skills. First, Richard hefts his giant, glittering broadsword high overhead and smashes an iron bar in half with one mighty blow. Fantastic stuff! Saladin responds in a thoroughly un-English manner: he places a silk cushion on end, then deftly slices it into two with his scimitar.
Richard is impressed, but he says he’ll stick to what he knows best: ‘Still, however, I put some faith in a downright English blow, and what we cannot do by sleight we eke out by strength.’ No more concise definition of English football exists.
– David Winner, Those Feet.
What could be more ancestrally English than St. George’s red cross tunics and chain-mail? It is unfailingly sighted in the stands of England international matches, adorned by proud English match-going individuals. Often accompanied with a flourish of face-paint and a gut full of obstinacy, these symbols are still a valid projection of age-adhered Englishness and an uneasy contempt for foreigners. In life as in football.
