Football's winning message to Keir Starmer - don't be haunted by past nightmares
On Saturday the fairy tale of the Lionesses continues, as England’s women take on Colombia in a World Cup quarter final. There is more than a match at stake.
It comes as our island nation grapples with its identity, on ground all-the-more contested as we stand also on the brink of a general
election year. With failing policies and a faltering economy, the Conservative Party has already committed itself to culture wars that aim to tear us apart from each other. Their vision of England is based on fear of others.
But in their quiet patriotism, the Lionesses tell us something good and brave about our national story – about togetherness, resilience and hard slog. As James Graham, the writer of Gareth Southgate sell-out play Dear England, says, both the men’s and women’s England teams are changing the narrative.
They are “managing to project a confident, uncomplicated form of Englishness entirely without the torment, the anxiety you can feel in our political class when dealing with patriotism, pride, and writing an optimistic new national story,” he told me after the Nigeria game this week.
Dear England cast on stageWhile much is made of the 57 “Years of Hurt” undergone by England’s men, England’s women experienced decades of actual hurt during which women’s football was banned, then ignored. Resilience has been built over years of poor wages and half-empty stadiums. Its LGBTQ players are comfortable being themselves.
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Now, Sarina Wiegman has completed the final transformation of the England women’s team to European champions and World Cup contenders – by giving players back that elusive thing called “belief”. Dear England finishes at the National Theatre today, on the eve of the Lionesses’ big game. It tells the story of Gareth Southgate’s journey from penalty-missing zero to England’s manager-hero – and how he stops his own recurring nightmare of missing against Germany by intervening in England’s repetitive penalty-losing waking dream. Its title comes from the calmly beautiful letter Southgate wrote to the country before the Euros in 2021.
“Dear England,” the post-pandemic letter began, “It has been an extremely difficult year.” It goes on: “I understand that on this island, we have a desire to protect our values and traditions – as we should – but that shouldn’t come at the expense of introspection and progress.”
Gareth Southgate (Getty Images)As the election approaches, keen footballer Keir Starmer and his starting XI, could do worse than re-read Southgate’s letter. Just as the England side was haunted by failed penalty shootouts, Starmer’s Labour is revisited nightly by the 92 election. It too needs a fundamental change of mindset. Like England, it needs to learn to win from its own values and play its own system rather than reacting to opponents or weighed down by 30 or 13 Years of Hurt.
“Keir Starmer is always going to have to deal with a difficult balancing act, pleasing voters on the left (who associate patriotism with nationalism) and right (who associate a lack of patriotism with wokeness),” says Graham, whose play is transferring to the West End. But the national football teams have overcome the heaviest burden of England teams in time gone by – fear.
“England players have been liberated from the fear of messing up, fear of the press, the fans. The weight of expectation that comes with being the home of the game. The women in particular – you can tell they’ve ‘done the work’, looking inwards, addressing their fear, and now they’re able to play with freedom, and incredibly, with joy. Imagine more joy in our politics!”
Keir Starmer (Derby Telegraph)When they return on September 4, the Tories will be as ruthless and dangerous as a trapped wasp tormented by a schoolboy Nigel Farage. Until it manages to clearly define what modern Englishness, and Britishness, is, Labour will keep falling into the same jam jar. Attempts have been made over the years by the writer George Orwell and Billy Bragg whose progressive patriotism is rooted in his home-town of Barking, where the St George’s flag flies as often as washing.
Tony Blair ’s often-derided brand of Cool Britannia at least grappled in a positive way with four blokes from Liverpool as a kind of
Mount Rushmore. Starmer’s Labour Party ’s attempts to grapple with the issue so far have looked like performance patriotism, as awkward as God Save The King at Labour Conference.
In contrast, Southgate has been unafraid to update and modernise what being English means to his team. Now the Lionesses are quietly defining what inclusive patriotism means. The diverse crowds they draw show the England shirt can be worn by anyone. Or as Graham puts it: “It would be nice to hope that the way these ladies cut through the opposition’s midfield by playing with commitment, unity, a clear mission, and without fear could be replicated by a bold and fearless Labour Party.”
In 1940, Orwell wrote an essay about using patriotism and nationalism as a way to argue for social revolution. It was called The Lion and The Unicorn. To stop a Labour government being a fictional creature, it is to the Lionesses Labour must now turn. Come on, England.
* Dear England is transferring to the West End from October 9. For more information go to tinyurl.com/4fsw9z4n
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