Am I a patriot now?
The World Cup got me good
You can always tell when a podcast host has a new book out, because they call in favours with all the other podcasts and all of a sudden you’re listening to 10 interviews with the same person in one week. But I don’t mind with Ben Rhodes, the former speechwriter for Barack Obama, because he usually has something interesting and intelligent to say. The new book he’s been plugging is All We Say: A History of the United States in Fifteen Speeches, and I was listening to his Americast interview the other day when he said something uplifting about how to reunite a divided world. He talked about the importance of reaching out to people on the opposite side of the political spectrum and, instead of focusing on what divides us, we should try to celebrate our shared values as a country - with an emphasis on celebration:
‘You don’t persuade people by lecturing them. Obama didn’t show up and say, you’re racist! And you must come out with your hands up and acknowledge it! He would say: This country is so great that we’ve been able to make progress before, and there’s a whole history of progress throughout America. Join us in this next chapter! He had a patriotic appeal. If you want to bring people along, you have to open a door for them to come in.’
I struggle with patriotism. Once you start learning about your country’s murky past (particularly the UK, jesus christ) it’s hard to unsee how tightly our colonial history is woven into the fabric of our society. But there are, of course, plenty of things I love about being English, British and European. And I hate how the England flag was commandeered last year by a group of wife-beating bigots who are too busy to volunteer for their local food bank, but have all the time in the world to scroll Facebook slop and ziptie flags to roundabouts. Oh, how the billionaires chuckle.
Football has arrived late to my life. I have never been a team sport kind of gal (except begrudgingly playing GA in netball because I was tall). I remember watching Brazil vs England in the 2002 World Cup, only because I was in Year 6 and we were allowed to watch the match in assembly instead of doing a proper lesson. My teens and twenties were entirely untouched by football, but somewhere in the last few years, it’s burrowed its way in. My husband has only slightly more expertise than me so I can’t blame him, but somehow we have both become obsessed with the men’s and women’s World Cup and Euros, and because both genders are now mainstream and very successful, it means there’s a big football event every summer on a four year rotation.
I put all the England matches in our calendar, I listen to the podcasts, I read the Wikipedia entries of Big Dan Burn and all the subs. The World Cup is fizzy and fun because these teams are shaped by real national identity, the fluke of where you were born or grew up, rather than who can buy the best talent with the most cash. There’s also something magical about getting a text from my mum at 11pm on a weeknight just saying ‘JUDE THE DUDE’ and a load of football emojis.
(All of this, and I don’t even watch the England matches directly because I find them too tense. I have them playing in my peripheral vision while I list stuff on Vinted or make tea, then watch the goals when they’re replayed.)
We constantly hear that we are living in a divided world. Division is an effective way of controlling people, which is why right wing parties like Reform and Restore are so powerful. They distract us from the real villains of the world by turning us against each other, and before you know it, you’re blaming transgender people and refugees for all the country’s woes, and regurgitating the trickle-down-nonsense that we somehow need the super-rich to keep the economy alive.
I once read that your political leaning can be simplified into two lines of thought: You either fear change, or hope for change. I’m a radical loony lefty, which means I believe society should tax wealth fairly, look after its most vulnerable members, and do something about climate change before we’re all burnt to a crisp. But black and white thinking won’t get us there, and neither will disengaging with anyone who votes differently to me. Everything is grey. People are complex. Someone I know who relates to the Reform narrative has also been lending me a Romantasy series that we laugh and talk about together, because our love for salacious vampire plotlines is greater than our political differences.
I recently made the radical decision to block BBC News so I stop checking the headlines all the time because (surprise!) it was making me really anxious. I want to stay informed, but I do not need a minute-by-minute account of Trump’s Truth Social posts or how many kids have died in Gaza today. Perhaps it is less news consumption, combined with the joy of the World Cup and the Count Binface soap opera, but in the space of a few weeks I’ve felt more engaged with my identity as an English person. It’s almost as if the real world is way less depressing when you’re not chronically online?! I even considered buying an England shirt for running, but I hate the colour red. Maybe I’ll buy one of the blue training tops if we beat Argentina…
All of this ramble is just to say that I’m really enjoying the World Cup, and no matter who wins, I will be sad when it ends on Sunday. I love the stories behind the players, the celebration and the hard work. I still don’t get the offside thing (not a cliche, I just don’t get it) but I love the fact that my kids are watching snippets of the matches and enjoying kicking a ball around. I am officially enjoying being English in the summer of 2026, and looking forwards instead of backwards. And most importantly, I love watching all the handsome men tumble around in the heat because oh my god, I fancy every single, sweaty one of them.
Clap-clap clap-clap-clap clap-clap-clap-clap ENGLAND!