Southgate's England

Yesterday England achieved something I never thought they could: win a match without causing cardiac arrest.

After Harry Maguire opened the scoring, the team seemed to exude a confidence that we haven’t seen since England beat Germany 5-1 in a World Cup qualifier. Yes, we’ve waited seventeen years for our side to deliver a performance that projects authority, skill and endeavour.

The team that beat Germany were billed as ‘The Golden Generation.’ Ferdinand, Terry, Gerrard, Scholes, Owen. These weren’t just the best players in England, but the world. So why could they not get beyond the quarter-finals? In the case against his team, Eriksson would cite bad luck. In 2002 they met Brazil, the greatest world cup nation, whom would go on to win the tournament. In 2006 they lost on penalties to Portugal, having played the final hour with ten men. Therefore, one might excuse the team of coming up against the best; of falling foul of the footballing Gods.

Can any team who has Paul Robinson in goal be golden?

What this denies though is the true context around these games. In 2002 Brazi’s Ronaldinho was sent off on the hour mark. England had thirty minutes – with a man advantage – to claw a goal back; they couldn’t do it. In 2006 they were the ones down to ten men – the reason? Wayne Rooney stamped on an opponent. Eriksson might say luck was against England, but that, in my mind, is a Stalinist re-working of history. England didn’t progress because the stars were against them. Rather they were architects of their own downfall. An inability to seize the moment and an ability to be indisciplined in key moments was their undoing. When it came down to it, the golden generation were fool’s gold: they may have looked like the real deal, but when put to the microscope they were found wanting.

The last World Cup was forgetable for England. In a challenging group we were out after two games. The nation forgave the team because their performances weren’t abject, showed some promise, and the players were seen as ones for the future. Well, the future came in the 2016 European Championships. And the future was not kind. Iceland was meant to be an easy game. Having a population of eleven meant the side had few to pick from. Despite being co-managed by a dentist, England didn't expect to be opened wide (Don't excuse the pun). With an early Wayne Rooney penalty it looked like plain sailing. Then Iceland equalised and the game changed. Joe Hart, England’s goalkeeper, seemed to forget that there was more to football than shouting and conceded again. England had seventy minutes to find a goal. Unfortunately, they did not rise to the occasion. There was no Churchillian sense of purpose and mission. Instead they negotiated Europe with all the acumen of Theresa May. It was clear there was no plan, eventually they exited with cowed embarrassment.

Joe Hart may have been more effective if he adopted this position the whole game. Pic. Reuters

So when Sam Allardyce became England manager the nation breathed a sigh of relief. No longer would the team be paralysed by the world stage. If England played in Allaryce’s DNA, we had nothing to fear. Big Sam had big balls; his progeny surely would too. In all seriousness, we believed that this was the only thing stopping us from advancing: a small matter of courage. When pressure was exerted on England, they crumbled. If their mentality could be sorted, then we would have a chance. Unfortunately, as well as the players, there was a problem with the coach’s mind-set. In a ‘set up’ meeting Allardyce discussed ways of circumventing the FA’s rules on player transfers; the subsequent publication left the bosses with no option but to sack their man. With one game and one victory, Allardyce’s 100% win record makes him England's most successful manager of all time. (It’s a wonder that people are venerating Gareth Southgate when his stats compare so unfavourably to Big Sam’s.)

Next in the media firing line was Gareth Southgate: the oxymoronic bright footballer. Southgate enjoyed a top level playing career, captaining three different sides; though most notably he was known for failure. One failure in particular. In 1996 he missed the deciding spot kick in the European Championships. On a wave of Baddiel and Skinner euphoria, Southgate hit the iceberg, sending  England's hopes south. Along with Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle, he became part of the missed penalty alumnus; a prestigious group that would eventually initiate new members – David Batty (“Quickly Kevin: will he score?”) being a noticeable one. Questions were raised over the appointment. Was putting an individual famous for failure in charge of a group renowned for it a good idea? Were we not just sending a man with a jerry can into a burning building? Or had the FA got out their old maths textbooks and realised that two negatives made a positive. If blood and thunder jingoism didn’t work, maybe a child-level approach to maths would.

Southgate, who had previously managed to Under 21’s, started slowly but assuredly. In an easy group the points tally soon racked up. No one seemed to care though. England had topped qualifying groups before, and then capitulated in the tournament itself. No pride could be taken in heading a group that had Scotland in joint second. (No offence meant). If you’re the kind of person that gets vainglorious about defeating the Auld Enemy, you're probably the type of person that celebrates successfully negotiating a pedestrian crossing. The one thing that did get people mildly excited about England was the manager’s insistence on things. Previous England managers had forgotten that football consists of a midfield, choosing instead to routinely bypass it with long balls. Southgate, on the other hand, experimented with ball playing defenders in a back three, utilising wing-backs as many premier league managers do. Consequently, England showed signs of pass and move – not quite a Liverpool groove, but neither a dad shuffle too. At least someone was trying to give the team an identity.

On to Russia. 

The first half against Tunisia had us all salivating. An early Harry Kane goal calmed the nerves. Then, England launched wave after wave of attack. Unfortunately, the general spearheading the campaign, Jesse Lingard, had a crisis of conscience, hesitating when tasked with shooting – it nearly cost us. The first sign of a new look England is that it didn’t. An old England would have asked FIFA for special dispensation to fly in Andy Carroll and hoof the ball up to him in the closing minutes, but Southgate’s England stuck to their manager’s instructions, working the ball, until the Tunisians grew so tired of defending that they forgot to pick up their markers, earning England the win.

Kane celebrates. Pic. courtesy of Kieran McManus.

The next game against Panama pitted The Three Lions against big game hunters. Despite Panama’s best efforts to turn the playing field into a parking lot and go Fight Club on the England team, Southgate’s boys came through 6-1 winners. We had beaten low level opposition before, but not with this level of swagger. (In fact I recall a game against Trinadad and Tobago where Peter Crouch had to pull a man’s dreadlock for England to win 1-0. We had won without resorting to schoolgirl tactics - we were on the up.)

With eight changes to a winning team, the Belgium game taught us nothing. Well maybe it taught us one thing: don’t underestimate players. With a new backline Jordan Pickford looked shaky in goal. The few shots that were thrown at him were parried back into harms way. The goal that eluded him led Belgium pundit/goalkeeper Thiibaut Courtois to say he ‘would have caught’ the shot. England finished the group as runners up, evading a potential quarter final with Brazil. Still, few were seriously impressed with England. They had beaten Tunisia in the last minute and taken a defenceless (don’t excuse the pun) animal to the sword in Panama. Knock-out football is the thing and typically it’s our ruin.

Pickford saves. Pic. courtesy Alex Morton.

Under extreme provocation England survived a battering from Colombia. If Panama were ASBO’s in red, Colombia were the definition of shithousery. They kicked out at everything, except the one thing that mattered : the ball. In previous tournaments an England player would have been sent off (see Beckham/Rooney), but in this one no player wanted to let their teammates down. Settling a personal score wasn’t as important as the score itself – they kept their cool. Even after they conceded in the last minute, they recovered in the second half of extra time to create gilt-edged chances. In the shoot-out they showed tremendous character to come from behind (nearly never done) to win. The maligned Jordan Pickford was England’s hero. He had risen to the occasion when his teammates needed him most. England were through.

Despite the optimism, the public weren't totally convinced. The performance against Colombia hadn’t been great. The defence had performed as a cohesive unit – something not predicted before the tournament – but the attack hadn’t. Alli looked heavy legged in midfield and Sterling seemed to be running into walls. The fluency in attack of England’s first games was not there. Ironically, it was penalty kicks that were keeping us in the competition. The first twenty minutes of Sweden looked more of the same: nervy, ponderous and stilted. If football was coming home, it was coming in a body bag. However, set pieces have been England’s secret weapons in this tournament. Ashley Young floated one in and Harry Maguire buried one away. England were now in their groove. Henderson conducted his orchestra from the centre, controlling the direction of the piece. Sterling's allegro was phenomenal (albeit his finishing wasn't); Alli's goal provided a string to his bow; and by the end Lingard was correctly trumpeted for his work. For the first time in the tournament, the attack and defence had passed the test.

Togetherness. Pic. courtesy AFP.

And as for the man that we owe this semi-final to: he’s cut from the same cloth as Sir Bobby and Sir Alf – England’s two great managers. Those men were passionate supporters of their nation, but they were never jingoistic. They respected the opposition and expected their players to too. More importantly, they believed in the team. Ramsey left talismanic Jimmy Greaves out of the World Cup final in favour of the inexperienced Geoff Hurst. For Ramsey it wasn’t about reputations but form. He picked the players that would fit into a system and not the other way around. Bobby Robson was a man that didn’t lower his knowledge to his players level but raised them to his. He thought if you treated people intelligently, then they would be intelligent with you. Gareth Southgate has these qualities: discipline and decency. As well as calm, his other buzzword has been ‘collective.’ In a world of Ballon d’Or individualism, this is a refreshing word to hear. For Argentina and Brazil, their performances in the tournament were hamstrung by belief in messianic figures (don’t excuse the pun). In prioritising their star men, they forgot other great players orbited around them. Bill Shankly once said, ‘The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having their share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, it’s the way I see life.’ These Three Lions might not bring football home, but what they will bring is its values: the idea that personal advancement is best achieved through co-operation; that in working together, enjoying what you do, happiness can be found.

Hannah Gadsby: Nanette

Last year Hannah Gadsby and John Robins were announced as the first ever joint winners of Edinburgh's Best Comedy Show. I was familiar with Robins’ work because I took a punt on him when I went to see 2009 debut hour Skinny Love. Following this, I went to see his subsequent shows, making him a regular date in my Edinburgh diary. However, I hadn’t heard of Gadsby before her victory.

Gadsby and Robins with the big prize.

Native to Australia, Gadsby has done most of her work there, only relocating to Edinburgh for the arts festival. I don’t really know how her name passed me by, as on researching her it’s clear she’s been gaining plaudits for quite some time. Last year’s show Nanette though is her breakthrough – perverse, because her tour-de-force performance is about quitting comedy. Fortunately in agreeing for Netflix to document her valediction, Gadsby has preserved this hour in time for comedy fans around the world to enjoy.

Having missed her show at London’s Soho Theatre, I was thrilled when Netflix announced they would be screening it. It’s not often I look forward to a Netflix comedy special; there are so many that it’s hard to distinguish trash from treasure. With Gadsby's special though I'd done my homework. I read the articles about it oscillating between comedy and tragedy; was intrigued by the idea of it being a meditation on stand up; and loved the irony of someone setting fire to the pedestal they were put on. I was won over before it started.

Despite reading about her, I'd never seen any clips of Gadbsy. I was coming at her cold. Initially, she struck me as diffident. She shuffles on stage, adjusts her glasses and speaks softly without oratory. The ‘opening ten’ is her introduction. She tells us where she is from: Tasmania (‘little island floating off the arse end of Australia’). Then, there’s a self-deprecatory joke about her androgynous appearance: the small town don’t mind her from afar, seeing her as a ‘good bloke,’ but when they come closer their prejudice moves with them, labelling her ‘a trickster woman.’ These jibes about appearance and small towns are in most comedians’ locker and are hardly remarkable. Whereas other comics would serve up these topics for a full show though, Gadsby uses them as hors d’oeuvres for her later, more refined dishes.

As the minutes clock by the piece gets more personal. We’re told how in Tasmania it was illegal to be gay up until 1997 (remember it wasn’t until last year that Australia voted in favour of same-sex marriage). In possessing an Art History degree, Gadsby proves herself an adept painter of words. Her recollection of watching a small TV in her small town in her small living room serves as a metaphor for the small-minded society that surrounded her. The fact that in that small world she encountered ‘her people’ for the first time in an ostentatious parade of spectacle - Sydney's Mardi Gras - is a juxtaposition both tragic and funny. Her rumination of “where do the quiet gays go” when watching is hilarious – but profound too, highlighting how even in a marginal group Gadsby feels different.

At about the twenty-minute mark, Gadsby pulls the rug from under us. Those self-deprecating jokes, so well received in her opener, are now challenged. She tells us that she needs to stop doing comedy because self-deprecation isn’t about ‘humility but humiliation.’ To be given a chance to speak as an outsider she had to immolate herself, and she’s not going to do it anymore. 

Being a huge comedy fan, I’m surprised I’ve never thought of this. 

If you’re a comedian from a marginal group, the only way the audience lets you in is if through self-ridicule. Frequently, the comic is of low-status: the audience laughs at the failures that befall them. However, if you’re a comic that looks and sounds different, then you have to find the trap door and take that status even lower. If you go high, then you’ll lose the audience: why has this 'weirdo' got confidence? The only path to success? Go low.

These thoughts on comedy are put on the hob to be returned to later. Now, she’s onto gender and how hers confuses people. Again, she demonstrates a keen eye for visual images when she takes umbrage at parents who feel the need to put pink headbands on bald babies. (‘Would you put a bangle on a potato?) Like all intelligent comedians, she knows how to use a daft analogy to slaughter sacred cows. Later, she manipulates low incident for profound result when telling us of a flight attendant's embarrassment at mistaken her for a man. She describes how she enjoys the ‘holiday’ of being a white man, going into a comic assault on the patriarchy.

In action.

With her surreal collisions of mundane and mighty, daft and serious, low and high, Gadsby knows how to write jokes. Soon she’s back to the hob reflecting on the nature of these jokes, considering their construction. Comedy necessitates tension, she tells us. The great comic doesn’t just know how to make an audience laugh, but how not to make them laugh. Comedy is as much about the space in between the jokes (the set-up) as it is about the joke itself (the punch-line). Good comics know when to hold; know when to let go.

Some people might watch this show and dismiss it because it isn’t a heaving hysterical laugh-fest. For me, comedy is a broad church. There are times when I want a minister to raise the roof, serving up a bombastic sermon. There’s other times when I want to parable that’s thought-provoking and educative – sure, funny as well. The reason so many people in their formative years loved Monty Python is because they were funny school teachers. Songs about Aristotle, The Spanish Inquisition sketch, animations on Botticelli – laughter that you may not understand at the time; but when researched you laugh again with new understanding. The thing I love about Gadsby’s second half is she references people I’ve never heard mentioned in comedy: van Gogh and his Sunflowers, Picasso and Cubism, the Renaissance painters too. Aware of keeping the comedy train on track, she refers to those Renaissant guys as ‘Turtles’ and van Gogh as bad at networking; however, she balances this with a critique on artists – again the pan bubbles.

The Python's liked having fun with art too.

Towards the conclusion Gadsby isn’t diffident in her voice, but confident. In shedding her comedic skin, she becomes a butterfly. Free to fly, no longer constrained by comedy’s parameters, she boils over, taking flight, taking aim at those who have silenced her. Initially, her rhetoric is redolent of Network’s ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore,’ but this recedes into a kind of catharsis that we pray is achieved.

By the end Gadsby’s Nanette has gone from being a set of contrivances to a story with truths. If this show is her funeral to jesterdom, then it isn’t a dirge but a Viking burial. At the curtain closure she is transformed: a Valkyrie floating down river, her show beside her: a bright, burning offer to the Gods. Hopefully what lies around the corner is happiness - it would be thoroughly deserved.

Nanette is available on Netflix

Greetings from Bury Park

Last month I saw a feature on the news for a British film. Set in 1980’s Luton to a Bruce Springsteen soundtrack, Blinded by the Light is to be produced by Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges, the team behind global smash, Bend It Like Beckham. Based on the memoir of Sarfraz Manzoor, it tells the story of a Muslim teenager's devotion to all things Springsteen and the subsequent cultural problems this brings.

Now as someone who has taught in Luton, lives in Dunstable, who loves The Boss, my interest was well and truly piqued. The next week I went down to the library and reserved my copy of Manzoor’s memoir, Greetings from Bury Park, a wry homage to Springsteen’s debut album, Greetings from Ashbury Park.

The Springsteen album.

Having secured the book, I’ve spent the last few days voraciously reading it. Manzoor’s life really resonated with my own. Unlike Manzoor, I’m not a Muslim; however, like him, I am a second-generation immigrant. My dad moved to Britain from Sri Lanka in the 70’s where he worked a number of menial jobs, before finding regular work as an engineer. As a Hindu he risked upsetting his family by marrying a white woman, my mum, a nurse from Dorset. Their marriage begot my brother and myself: Anglo-Asian kids at a time when there weren’t many. At our local primary children were either from Pakistan or England. More often than not, the two nationalities didn’t lock horns, but there wasn’t much mixing either. When a new Mosque was proposed white families (some from my school) put banners in their window, blazoned ‘No To Mosque.’

Despite our brown skin, my brother and I had few problems. The fact we had Western names probably helped. Also, we weren’t religious, which meant our lives weren’t so different to the majority English cohort. Our heritage didn’t inform our language – we didn’t speak Tamil, and it didn’t inform our clothing – we wore football strips. From the sound of our names and the sound of our tongues, we appeared English. It was only inside the home that we did anything that could be considered Sri Lankan. At Christmas we would have Sri Lankan relatives over, where my mum, brother and me would sit slack-jawed as Tamil talk went on around us. On Sundays we didn’t sit down for a roast, but gathered for rice and dhal, tempering the spice with natural yoghurt. My dad would eat with his hands, whilst the rest of us would opt for cutlery. In many ways being a Sri Lankan was a spectator sport for us: we would turn out at the weekend to support the team, then go home, take off the colours, and be English again for the working week.

Manzoor though is more embedded in both worlds than I was. His father moved over from Pakistan for a better life. Unable to afford his wife and families passage, he lived without them for many years. It wasn't until 1974, fourteen years after his marriage, that he made the call for them to come over. Living in Bury Park, a predominantly Asian area, Manzoor’s father made the decision for his children to be educated at a predominantly white school. This may have been the defining moment in his children's lives. Occupying a space alongside white Brits meant they were susceptible to influence. For Muslims ritual, religion and family is the thing. These principles aren’t shared by the English. For the English, religion is something to think about on a Sunday and forget about for the rest of the week. For the English, family is about the people who live within your walls, as for the rest of them, well we’ll see them at Christmas. For the English duty and obligation is earmarked with a resigned shrug; it isn’t a guiding philosophy to live by day by day.

I really love this front cover.

With this culture clash it’s unsurprising that Sarfraz’s identity is annexed by British rule. On a trip to Pakistan he unwinds from the exhausting family meet-and-greet merry-go-round by listening to his Steve Wright In The Afternoon tapes. More evidence of his assimilation is his predilection for Western women. Instead of bejewelled Asian girls, he favours ones without decoration, preferably with nothing on. Consequently, he scours the local library perusing Amateur Photographer magazine for nudes. (Writing that, I’ve just remembered my dad used to be a subscriber. Dirty old man!)

However it isn’t until he attends college that he experiences the thing that paradoxically gives and takes his identity. Tied in a turban, a Sikh lad has a pair of headphones on. His eyes are closed; he’s immersed in sound. Sarfraz asks him what he’s listening to. The lad tells him, The Boss. At this point, Sarfraz has only heard of ‘Born in the U.S.A,’ which he thinks is alright. Amolak isn’t satisfied with this ambivalence. You’re either with Springsteen or you’re against him. Agnosticism will not do. Springsteen is The Word; Amolak his Disciple; he will turn this heathen to heaven and him experience the wonder that is Mr New Jersey. Soon Sarfraz is sending off for bootleg copies of Springsteen albums and writing his favourite lyrics down. It’s the start of a fanaticism that would lead to a book, an Edinburgh show and now a movie.

Each chapter of Greetings ... begins with a Springsteen lyric in the same way some books have religious epigraphs to give their work weight and direction. Throughout the course of his life, Springsteen is Sarfraz’s guiding light. Sons of immigrants, born into the working class, the two have something in common. The idea of commonality is what makes Springsteen endure. Where other pop stars find fame in elevated otherness, The Boss achieves popularity in staying true to his roots. He has the restless spirit of the small town: an urge to break out of the straightjacket of conservative values and find freedom on the great American freeway. In the book Sarfraz explains, ‘if religion was about answering the profound questions of how to live, Bruce Springsteen gave me more profound answers than Islam.’ An old text can feel just that: old; whereas pop lyrics often feel contemporary, urgent and relevant. Personally, I know I’ve learnt more about love and life through inlay lyrics than I did through my Catholic school upbringing. It’s this love of Springsteen that takes Sarfraz around the world, watching his hero, even meeting him on three occasions.

Never meet your heroes - unless they're The Boss. (Pic. courtesy of The Guardian)

The trouble Sarfraz has in his life is how to square the circle: How can someone 'born to run' walk with Allah? Is it possible to experience the love felt in pop music through a culture that arranges marriage? How can you be a getaway when social-cultural roadblocks block your way? The chapter ‘Better Days’ is particularly strong at documenting how difficult love is when it comes into contact with the shirt pull of history.

The thing I really loved about this memoir was that it was a profound page-turner. It made me reflect on my own life and how it may have been different. Undoubtedly, I have lost something in the sea-saw of my identity being tilted towards Blighty (there’s relatives I can’t converse with; I know little of my dad’s Hinduism; I don’t truly appreciate the struggle my family endured in conflict), but selfishly I feel less muddled. My devotion to education is Sri Lankan. I believe my work ethic is too. But I haven’t had to face the dilemmas Sarfraz has in balancing two worlds. The victory of the book is no one is truly to blame. It’s easy to stand in judgment and blame his parents for his inner-conflict, but that’s reductive and denies the complex social structures that inform their views.

Given the book was published in 2007 I was keen to find out how Manzoor’s life turned out. Typing his name into Google, I was relieved to read about him finding love and happiness. I really rooted for Manzoor in his memoir and I think you will too. I’m really excited about the forthcoming film because it will shine a spotlight on the immigrant experience and the challenges young people face in being dutiful to their parents and loyal to their hearts; but also in the hope it will turn people towards the original source material. Greetings from Bury Park shares themes with its inspiration - dreams, love and escape. It's a Springsteen album without the guitars. So here's what you should do: take out your headphones, put The Boss' album on, lie back and read these lyrics about a man Born in Pakistan but very much made in England.

Greetings from Bury Park is available now.

Blinded by the Light will be in cinemas next year.