Sections of the press are falling over themselves to express their outrage over the appointment of Thomas Tuchel as England manager…
THERE it was, in all its peevish glory.
There I was, scurrying through the aisles of Marks & Spencer in Moorgate like an episode of Supermarket Sweep. Desperately craving some balance of carbs and energy under the bracket of ‘healthy’.
Then I saw it. A reversed copy of the Daily Mail’s back page near to the checkout. The headline booming ‘A Dark Day For England’ accompanied a picture of a modest looking Thomas Tuchel.
I stopped, I laughed. I’m laissez-faire at the best of times during an international break, but something irked me enough to want to read the editorial comment which still sadly speaks to and for so many.
The short 150 words or so managed to hit every note from the toxic sovereign-songbook. It referred to the late Sven Goran Eriksson as having a ‘take the money and run’ attitude, and described Tuchel’s appointment as ‘a dark day for English football’. They did modestly admit they might have made an exception for Pep Guardiola.
It’s funny, and predictable and at some point I had to wonder: why not just say the quiet thing out loud? Why not lament the fact it’s tainted a clear sense of nationalism by hiring a German. Why not mourn the notion that supporters singing about German Bombers might hit differently now.
I care enough to write about it here, not because I yearn for the most successful appointment for England, but because it once again symbolises a stance I have when it comes to any sense of nationalism, particularly around football.
During last summer’s Euros, the conversation about not supporting the national team came up again in my company.
I’m at a point where I’m totally ambivalent to the entire thing. I’m not performatively anti-England (apart from when trying to wind up mates). I take no pleasure in them losing or winning.
During the summer, I witnessed some of my friends happy and was happy for them.
It’s this type of thing which makes me pivot towards something else. The Jacob Rees-Mogg-ness of it all. Yelling to a gullible cohort about how this apparently once great nation should ‘never bow to plebeian migrants or Europeans’ to fulfil our most heralded civic roles, because we have order and decorum.
That’s exactly what this is. It’s less about the credentials of a Lee Carsley or Graham Potter and more about perceived ‘English values’ – whatever they are in the modern lexicon.
From a Liverpool perspective, the entitlement associated with England’s national team has never been appealing. It’s not and should never be a prerequisite to dislike England when supporting Liverpool. Nobody should be sniggered at for doing so.
We’ve seen this line become blurred at times. The ‘Scouse Not English’ thing can itself be exclusionary and problematic. Not everybody is on the same page with such a concept.
It feels like football does generally escape the need to ‘other’ people because of Brexit, because of the internet, because of the modern day Conservative and Reform party rhetoric. Yet Tuchel’s appointment ticked every box in the right-wing tabloid template.
These attitudes were once prevalent within the stands in this country. They have naturally and with increased commercialism eroded over time on the club front.
Football violence and hooliganism was built on political and societal grounds. It personified the headlines of the day. The state of things.
Telling people to reject multiculturalism in any form is unhelpful. In football – a place where supporters still cannot be trusted to drink a beer within sight of a pitch – it can be considered provocative in places.
And yet, the Premier League institutions remain untouched and untouchable in this conversation. They drift further away from the nationalist gaze with no thought about them as prized institutions, but flogged as global assets.
A double-edged sword it may be, especially when we look at what money has done to the league.
Generally, we (the Liverpool we) are lucky. If the England manager attitude applied across the board, we might never have had Cardiff, Istanbul or Jürgen Klopp.
We have been treated to one English experience since the late 1990s, being Roy Hodgson. A man who viewed supporters as a distraction. A man who was so lacking in self-awareness and so indulgent in deflection that it felt like a windup.
Tuchel might be a great English success, or he may emit the same paranoid, overly-intense energy which puts many off him. I don’t really care how he fares.
I care enough to say his nationality shouldn’t be a mark against his name before he’s stepped through the door.
I’d like to say it’s 2024 and we’re well past these attitudes being relevant. But it seems, if anything, the doom-loop is going full circle, spearheaded by the same old characters. Reaching out to the same old people.
It never has been, and never will be for me.
Buy Dan Morgan’s book ‘Jürgen Said To Me’ on Klopp, Liverpool and the remaking of a city…
