The Lionesses have slain an old England

New Statesman​

6 days ago

Photo by Adam Davy/Alamy
On an overcast Tuesday afternoon (July 29), as 65,000 people lined the Mall to Buckingham Palace in celebration of the Lionesses Euro triumph, one thing became clear: this was not like the football gatherings of old. Gone were the crushed beer cans, roadside urination and coked-up Charlies; instead there were prams, cowgirl hats decorated with the St George's Cross, and women of all ages. There were plenty of boys and men, too: the elders who had learned to appreciate the women's game, and the young'uns native to its joys.
It is a different type of game. But the joyless, systemic reasons as to why the professional women's game isn't as advanced as the men's did not bother anyone on the Mall. If there is one uncontestable truth about football, it is that there is no uniform way of experiencing, playing or enjoying it. The beautiful game would not be so beautiful if everything was the same. It survives by flexing with different contexts and audiences, grounded by the game's fundamentals. It thrives on difference – as the tempo of the Premier League differs from the National League; so does the European version of the game from the South American; as there is a complete 180-degree vibe shift between something like the Euros, compared to the Africa Cup of Nations. The women's game is just another variation.
The modern personality of the women's game (which only became fully professionalised in 2018) can be seen off the field, too. Unsurprisingly, a game led by a group of people who were officially excluded from playing football for 50 years (by the FA), has a keen interest in inclusivity. That includes a wide embrace of queerness, race and culture. This was exemplified on the Mall by the appearance of the Nigerian afrobeats superstar Burna Boy, who performed alongside his die-hard fan, the England head coach Sarina Wiegman. And though this is a cleaner, family-friendly packaging of the game, there is still some bite. The exuberant Arsenal winger, Chloe Kelly, is that personified: still riding high after scoring the winning penalty for England (with a kick of the ball that clocked in at a thunderous 110 km/h), she told those gathered on the streets how 'so f*cking special' the Euros triumph is.
The Mall was chosen as a royal setting for the queens of European football, but the vibrant and inclusive Englishness that the women's national team represents contrasted oddly with the palace that loomed over them – a greying, absent relic, more an uninvited uncle than a generous host. The patriotism represented by Buckingham Palace now looks dated against the national pride envisioned by Gareth Southgate and displayed by both the women's and men's national teams.
Through it, in a footballing context at least, a malleable and de-toxified Englishness – one sensitivity attuned to race, class and cultural struggles – has emerged. After her winning penalty in the final, Kelly declared: 'I'm so proud to be English', and this was uncontroversial. Had she been a male player during our national team's dark period in the 1970s and 1980s, when hooliganism and racism was rife, these words would have had very different connotations.
This new, more malleable form of Englishness is not the 'Cool Britannia' of the Euro '96 tournament, a cultural celebration which was co-opted by politicians, most notably Tony Blair. The power and pervasiveness of sport to connect otherwise disparate groups of people hasn't waned, but there is less room in this movement for Royals in hospitality boxes and celebratory Downing Street visits. Keir Starmer would have been an awkward host for the Lionesses' reception at No 10 on Monday (July 28), despite being a football fan (he was in Scotland meeting Donald Trump). Angela Rayner – who, like many of the women's team, wears her working-class roots proudly – was clearly a more natural fit.
On the Mall, there was no escaping this new and different patriotism. The Lionesses have taken the tactical foundations of Southgateism and aligned it with their own, proud, goals. The cameras focused on the celebrating team and their fans, cropping out the old symbols of national identity in the background. The road to Buckingham Palace served a practical purpose, in that no other street could accommodate 65,000 people. And yet it felt as if this crowd could have congregated somewhere else – a park, a festival, somewhere with less historical baggage – and that this might have been more appropriate to the England they chose to celebrate.
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