Tagged with Football

Where have all the poppies gone?

britain-soccer-fifa-poppiesAhead of  the England vs Scotland game Mark Perryman responds to FIFA’s Poppies ban

The last time England played Scotland in a competitive match at Hampden Park, in November, 1999, it was preceded by none of the manufactured row about whether the teams should have poppies embroidered on their shirts. The tabloids were more interested in a good old-fashioned football rivalry instead. The Sun greeting the fixture with the headline ‘Jocks Away’ while north of the border the Daily Record sought to put England manager Kevin Keegan’s over-confidence in its place with ‘Boastbusters’ with the unforgettable tagline ‘Scots v The Auld Enemy : See Pages 2,3,4,5,6.7,62,63,64,65,66, 67 & 68.’ This was pre-Salmond and Sturgeon, the irresistible rise of the SNP and the near wipeout of Scottish Labour MPs. And it was before UKip’s forward march too. Culminating in Brexit, a populist version of English nationalism against all things that Europe, and Scotland, seems to represent in terms of broadly social-democratic values versus a neoliberal free-for-all. Continue reading →

Englishness and Welshness in the Battle of Britons

adidas-beau-jeu-euro-2016-ball-2 (1)Mark Perryman previews England v Wales as competing versions of nationhood

The traditional ‘Battle of Britain’ match is of course England v Scotland, the very first recognised international football match dating back to 1872 and the most intense of rivalries ever since. The last time two ‘home’ nations met in a major tournament it was again England v Scotland at Euro 96. The spark in so many ways for the break-up-Britain agenda that was to follow the Blair government devolution referendums a year later and latterly transformed into the SNP ‘tartan landslide’. Once derided by Jim Sillars as ‘ninety-minute nationalists’ Scots today are so busy building a nation they can call their own they haven’t much time left over for their under-performing football team, ouch! Continue reading →

Football: Catching up with Portugal

1966-10-11-cover-no-flash50 years ago England beat Portugal in the ’66 World Cup but Mark Perryman argues English decline has left England racing to keep up with their Euro rivals

Thursday night’s pre-Euro England friendly versus Portugal is bound to provoke a 50th anniversary revisiting of England’s best match of the ’66 World Cup. No, not the much feted final, rather many would argue it was the semi against Portugal. Eventual Golden Boot winner, awarded to the tournament’s top goal-scorer, Eusébio, was in his superlative pomp with the 82nd minute penalty he scored pushing England all the way. Never mind though, the contribution of Bobby Charlton to England’s campaign has tended to be overshadowed by Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick in the Final but it was Bobby’s brace that saved England in the semi, the team running out eventual 2-1 winners. Continue reading →

The symbolic politics of England football: an imagined community of eleven people

adidas-beau-jeu-euro-2016-ball-2 (1)Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football explores what Monday’s announcement of the England Euro 2016 squad tells us about modern Englishness

I was six at the time of England winning the World Cup in ’66. Despite it remaining somewhat of an obsession of mine – to declare an interest I’ve just edited the collection 1966 and Not All That to mark the 50th anniversary – I have no significant memories. Well apart from one, being Daddy’s little helper collecting tickets on the gate at the Tadworth, Walton and Kingswood summer flower show. It rained and nobody came, years later I realised why after checking the date, clashing with the England vs Argentina quarter-final was never going to attract any but the most dedicated of horticulturalists. Continue reading →

In a stink about a pink St George Cross

10554-breast-cancer-care-half-time-comp-hero-620x349Professional controversialist Toby Young has got himself all in a froth about a pink St George Cross at England’s international this week

Oh dear. Toby Young is all in a lather, a victim once more of the ‘PC brigade’. Writing in the Daily Mail, he describes the scene he seems to have witnessed at Tuesday night’s England international versus the Netherlands:

It was fitting that Tuesday’s England match was awash with pink shirts, pink ribbons and pink flags. After all, football — along with rugby, cricket and every other traditionally male sport — has been forced to undergo what you might call, to borrow a fashionable phrase, gender re-assignment surgery in the past few years. An area of life that used to be associated with men has been colonised by women determined to prove a point about gender equality, regardless of whether they have any genuine interest in the sports in question.”

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