It’s complicated.
That’s how I would describe my life of supporting the England football team, as a Manchester United supporter of 40 years old. I don’t speak for anyone other than myself but I can imagine there are a fair few of a similar age who have the same feeling.
For a long time now we were the generation growing with this, and then, as age and time does, we were cruelly replaced by a younger generation who are now really unaware of the complexities and the residual apathy some of us still feel; that feeling of having to be coaxed into being interested at all. They don’t know why some United fans would be reluctant to get too excited.
So why is that the case? Well, lucky for you, reader, I’m here to tell you, from at least my own perspective.
It came from being a young teenager and not really understanding why we had a defence who were so good and yet barely got called up for the England team. Of course this was a time when at least eight of the eleven players in a top flight team were English if not British. Even at Arsenal, who pioneered the reverse trend. Especially at Arsenal, in fact. So I would console myself, when Dixon and Adams were selected, with the fact that Parker and Pallister would remain fit to play for United.
When Steve Bould got the chance he deserved in 1994, but Steve Bruce didn’t – and never did – I rationalised that with the thought that Arsenal’s defence was renowned for being miserly. It didn’t matter that we won the double. Arsenal had a good team and an excellent defence. Those players from Arsenal deserved their places, by the way – this was not an era where five first-team appearances were followed by demands for a national team call-up.
I watched the class of 92 break into the first team and win the double in 1996. I remember the talk was that Phil Neville might replace Gary – who’d just started for England – in the England team for Euro 1996. I remember being confused that Liverpool’s ‘Spice Boys’ were all going to be in the squad but Paul Scholes and David Beckham weren’t.
No big deal at this stage. But it was a big deal in 1998 when David Beckham was sent off and England were knocked out on penalties. It was a big deal when Glenn Hoddle blamed him after the game (and, it still bothered me to an unreasonable extent when Michael Owen revealed in his recent book that he still blamed Beckham!). It was definitely a big deal when an effigy of Beckham was hung outside a pub in London prior to our game against West Ham early in the 98/99 season.
Beckham was booed playing for England. So were other United players. Phil Neville would be relentlessly booed and that was before he conceded a penalty in Euro 2000. He was deemed responsible for England’s group exit, which apparently had nothing to do with the entire team throwing away leads in two games. Neville was vilified after that.
In the meantime, United as a club were thrown under the bus by the FA. Resentment was still riding high from a lot of United fans who had grown very defensive of Beckham after 1998, when the FA tried to use United as a political vehicle to host the 2006 World Cup.
The inaugural Club World Cup was being held in Brazil in January 2000, and even though United had just featured in the Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo, they were pressured to enter, with the FA feeling the support of one of FIFA’s club enterprises from their major club would curry favour.
United were assured by the Daily Mirror that they would be supported – the only way to reasonably accommodate the trip into the fixture schedule was for United to withdraw from the FA Cup – a trophy they were holders of, of course, having won it in the Treble.
But the Mirror reneged on their agreement, and as soon as United agreed to take part they were projected as a club who were turning their back on tradition. They had ruined the reputation of the FA Cup.
It was a stitch-up, all played out with enough evidence for anyone who cared to look for themselves how it all went down, but people chose to criticise United. England, of course, didn’t even get the World Cup. It didn’t come home.
This is how I felt. I was annoyed that more people didn’t see what had really happened. It still frustrates me today that United, with their proud tradition in the tournament, are seen as ‘the team who ruined it’.
I can imagine that those fans with a more lucid memory of how reliant the country were on Bryan Robson might have felt even more resentment.
As United fans we laughed ironically as the country suddenly loved Beckham again when he scored to take us to the 2002 World Cup. I can remember being incredulous when Beckham’s match-winning penalty against Argentina in the tournament was projected as a journey of redemption the entire country had been on. They all celebrated then.
And then England were eliminated and suddenly Beckham was not as good as his celebrity profile suggested. The Nevilles, never popular, were still criticised perennially. Nicky Butt ended that tournament as England’s best player, and everyone except United fans were surprised he was so good. Butt ended with 39 caps. Criminal.
It continued. Rio Ferdinand was used as an example by the FA when he missed a routine drugs test. Other players did but they were not punished in the same way. When Gary Neville tried to defend his team-mate by suggesting his fellow England players take some sort of action, nobody from other clubs were willing to stand up for him. Ferdinand was banned for eight months. He would miss Euro 2004. United – still a decent match for ‘Invincible’ Arsenal at this point – relinquished their title without the best defender in the country.
Should I stop there? I was going to, and then realised that this was sixteen years ago. And there still might not be people who remember those days, so, thanks for making me feel old.
Wayne Rooney then moved to Manchester United and carried the weight of the failure of the Golden Generation. As Beckham was repeatedly deemed past it and brought back in, as Michael Carrick went as underused as Nicky Butt, as Paul Scholes was deemed dispensable for the failed era of Lampard and Gerrard in the middle, Rooney was left to carry the can. The Golden Generation carried a rotten stench, with Liverpool’s players having gone on record as saying they didn’t want to pass to United’s players, such was their resentment for the age of glory United had been living in.
Rooney was taken to more than one international tournament carrying a significant injury and he was expected to ‘do a Pele or Maradona’ and single-handedly take England to success. It was unfair, but Rooney carried that can, and was repeatedly referred to as unlikable and unintelligent.
When John Terry racially abused Anton Ferdinand, the surprise consequence was that it would be Rio Ferdinand who would be omitted from England’s 2012 European Championship squad. Then-manager Roy Hodgson insisted it was ‘very easy’ to prefer Liverpool’s Martin Kelly (yes, really) who had been called up as a replacement for Gary Cahill – Cahill himself had even been picked in front of Ferdinand, arguably England’s most talented defender of all time. Against all this, it was shamefully pretended that it had nothing to do with Terry’s racial abuse (and, of course, Terry was selected).
As Wayne Rooney approached the incredible milestone of surpassing Sir Bobby Charlton’s goal record for England, it seemed as though only United fans – even those who had a love-hate relationship with the former Everton man on the back of two transfer requests (one alleged) – were happy for him. For everyone else, it was a case of ‘should have done it sooner’.
All of that has made it fairly easy to hold England at arm’s length. Since 1998, there has been a reluctance on my part to feel enthusiastic about anything with England. I’ve watched the games – not all of them – and I admit that my greatest cheers are when United’s players have done something good. I can remember being buzzing for Danny Welbeck and Marcus Rashford at the tournaments they made their bows in. I wanted England to do well for them. They were not tarnished by what had gone on before and this was a chance for everyone to start afresh.
In a way, Rooney’s retirement as the last of the Golden Generation, and the long overdue removal of the pre-tournament expectation that England would win, has gone a significant distance to making the experience of following England easier. Perhaps United’s own fall from grace has helped, because it has readjusted expectations to be more realistic (although I say this tentatively, considering the criticism that was building around Marcus in recent months).
It has been heartwarming to see Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw continue this journey of proving people wrong – they were both magnificent for United last season after being criticised even by some of our own. They have taken that into playing for England and have, alongside Raheem Sterling, been the players of the tournament.
It is that clean slate, the new squad of players not attached to the past, led by a man who is respectable and makes respectable decisions (and being a boyhood United fan helps), which makes it easier to engage with this squad. It made the 2018 World Cup much more enjoyable than any since 1990 and it’s done the same with these championships.
Perhaps it’s also the political backdrop and the way everything has unfolded. The players taking the knee. The booing. The success of players that has forced those men traditionally cast as gammons to cheer. There were no boos at kick-off on Wednesday, none that I could hear anyway.
The squad are likeable. Raheem Sterling is likeable. Jordan Henderson is likeable. The Chelsea players too. When you see Sterling score after the personal attacks from the right-wing press, it doesn’t matter that he plays for Manchester City and once played for Liverpool. It’s bloody brilliant. (Of course, this also may be helped by the fact he was a boyhood United fan too.)
Of course it’s also to do with the generation game. My journey is not my nephew’s, or my sister-in-law’s, both of whom are really into their football and have been loving the tournament. This is their Italia 90 or Euro 96, one they’ll remember forever.
I have loved experiencing that and I’ll remember this time fondly for those reasons, regardless of what the outcome is tonight, even though for them, it may be one of those supposedly character-building setbacks we all thought were a rite of passage after those penalty shootout defeats to Germany in 1990 and 1996.
It’s easy to separate our history of supporting England into compartments because so much has changed. Our feelings for the 1980s sides are different to the ones of the 90s, or the 2000s, or the last decade or so.
So I’ll be supporting England – I’ll be cheering them on, and I’ll be excited and nervous. I want all of the players to do something that has never been done before and I want Marcus to experience some of it, I want Jadon Sancho to get on the pitch. I want Harry Maguire to stick his head on it and score the winning goal.
Would it mean as much as it would if United won the league next season? Probably not. And that probably is the residual feeling of the experience I’ve had in my lifetime. Just another chapter in the complicated history of an English Manchester United supporter.
But it’s a different journey for my nephew and sister-in-laws. One I hope isn’t filled with the experience of seeing their favourite players booed. One I hope they don’t remember for political controversy. One that I hope is a journey of the sort of togetherness they feel today – starting with a defining victory tonight.
