1. There are plenty of politicians who are absolutely avid football fans with a long heritage of genuinely caring about the game, as well as the positive and negative aspects of our society that it reflects (yet crucially, does not create). Notably, these are the ones who don’t actually jump on every passing bandwagon.
Instead, you get the likes of Farage or Fox or Johnson. And whenever one of these walks up to what I imagine they’d call the penalty crease to sky some completely basic point about football, all I can think is: SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE. What are you even doing, guys? Why are you here? Without Googling, tell me where the last Euros were hosted. Let’s face it, you couldn’t even tell us which two teams were in the FA Cup final. Come back when you can beat a nine-year-old on the trivia.
‘If this is how they react to taking the knee, please keep politicians out of sport,’ writes The Guardian’s Martina Hyde.
2. Cut to the scene of a packed sports hall on an August afternoon at the University of Limerick five years ago. A wife and husband sit side by side and watch on a big screen as the first Irish athlete in 84 years runs in an Olympic sprint final.
Hayley and Drew Harrison have been Thomas Barr’s coaches ever since he moved to UL to study in 2010. When he joined his sister, Jessie, in the Harrison training group, Barr’s personal best for the 400m hurdles was 56.47. Six years later, the Harrisons watched Barr run a lifetime best of 47.97 to finish fourth in the Olympic final. Barr missed out on a bronze medal by five-hundredths of a second.
The Ireland vest that Barr wore that day is framed on the wall – along with other vests and numbers given as souvenirs of thanks by athletes – in the study room of Hayley and Drew Harrison’s home in O’Briens Bridge, on the eastern verge of Co Clare.
Sinéad Kissane writes about ‘the coaching couple setting the Barr high,’ for The Irish Independent (€).
3. Dear England,
It has been an extremely difficult year. Everyone in this country has been directly affected by isolation and loss. But we have also seen countless examples of heroism and sacrifice. It’s given us all a new understanding of the fragility of life and what really matters. When you think of the grand scheme of things, perhaps football doesn’t seem so important. And what I want to speak about today is much bigger than football.
As we go into this summer, I know that there will be a lot of emotion tied up in the Euros, and in this England team. I can’t possibly hope to speak for an entire country, but I would like to share a few things with you, as we begin this journey.
There’s something I tell our players before every England game, and the reason that I repeat it is because I really believe it with all my heart.
I tell them that when you go out there, in this shirt, you have the opportunity to produce moments that people will remember forever.
You are a part of an experience that lasts in the collective consciousness of our country.
England boss Gareth Southgate’s open letter ahead of the Euros for The Players’ Tribune.
4. The old ones are best. When San Marino famously scored against England from the kick-off in a World Cup qualifier in November 1993, the football writer Joe Lovejoy recorded the moment with a line that entered the annals of sporting reportage.
“The no-hopers were ahead after just nine seconds,” he wrote in the Independent. “And for some 21 embarrassing minutes England were losing to a mountain top.” It was a variation on a phrase used by commentator Ian Archer during a 1991 game between Scotland and San Marino.
You can see where this one is going.
The Irish Independent’s Tommy Conlon pens a column on Stephen Kenny’s Ireland (€).
5. I support England. England is by many objective measures a terrible country ruled by terrible people with a terrible past and a terrifying future, and I support England. None of my forebears were born in England, and I support England. When I watch the news or follow England games abroad or read about politics I often feel utterly disconnected from this country, and I support England. It was an Englishman who snarled at me on the street last month while I was taking my daughter to nursery: “Fuck off Chinaman, and take your Covid patient with you.” Nevertheless, I support England.
I’d like to tell you that I support England as an act of progressive defiance, as a means of reclaiming the cursed red-and-white flag from the reactionaries and the hooligans and the white supremacists. But this would be twisting facts to suit a narrative. The truth is I support England because I’ve known nothing else. I support England because I loved Gazza and Teddy Sheringham, because Ronald Koeman should have been sent off for fouling David Platt in 1993, because of Jonathan Pearce’s commentary on the France ‘98 version of Three Lions. I support England because it’s what you did, because supporting England has given me some of the greatest happiness I’ve ever known.
Jonathan Liew of The Guardian on supporting England in these divided times.
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