Now is the time to make a big impression ahead of a major tournament, like Gascoigne did before Italia 90
– so Mainoo and Branthwaite can still catch that plane
If Paul Gascoigne was England’s star of Italia 90, the man who changed a continent’s view of English football and English footballers over the course of one magic, tragic summer, it was all facilitated in April of the same year at the old Wembley in front of a meagre 21,000 people. You think that people hate international friendlies now? At least they buy tickets.
Against Czechoslovakia on that night, Gascoigne proved that his luxury could also be a consumable good for his national team. The chipped through-ball to Steve Bull was exquisite, the dribble and cross the same. In the dying embers, with 21 other players winding down, Gascoigne broke from midfield and lashed home with his left foot to complete his audition.
In The Guardian, the great David Lacey wrote that Gascoigne had “laughed himself into England’s World Cup squad”. After his goal, the main television camera cut to manager Bobby Robson, sat on England’s bench and wagging his finger in celebration. It’s hard to lip-read his words, but it looks like “That first touch”. Even if not, let’s remember it that way.
The international breaks prior to major tournaments have always held that mystique, the chance for the bolters to make a late dash into the centre stage of an international manager’s thoughts.
Eight years after Gascoigne, Michael Owen made his debut against Chile at Wembley and did enough in defeat for Glenn Hoddle to take him to France. Owen did not start either of the first two games, but you know what happened next. In 1966, Geoff Hurst made his debut against West Germany in February and his West Ham United team-mate Martin Peters got his first chance in May, impressing against Yugoslavia at Wembley. By 30 July of the same year, at the same stadium, Hurst and Peters embraced after scoring all four goals in a World Cup final victory. In six months, daydreams became life became a blurry mix of the two as the dream was realised. International breaks are viewed by many with the same attitude as
From top: Michael Owen impressing in his debut against Chile in 1998; Paul Gascoigne in action during the warm-up victory against Czechoslovakia in 1990; Geoff Hurst stands up in the middle of the front row of an England portrait before his debut against West Germany in February 1966 a midweek appointment with the hygienist, ultimately necessary but an annoying interlude and not one worth changing your schedule for. We might dwell upon whether it is healthy that a brief delay in the relentless procession of the domestic season causes such annoyance, but it is wasted time. The Premier League’s culture, particularly online, is a giant steamroller over football culture. To source your joy, then, look to those who have a shot at something unthinkable over the next week. In England’s squad are four uncapped players and seven more with five caps or fewer. Urgh, Gareth Southgate always picks the same players. Except when he doesn’t. Spending time at St George’s Park this week, what jumped out most was the excitement of those new faces, and the excitement for them in the senior players.
Kobbie Mainoo had the permasmiled face of a boy being handed the skeleton key to his greatest ambition in life and Harry Maguire spoke about how it was an honour to look out for and mentor Mainoo. Jarrad Branthwaite met up with Anthony Gordon for the first time since the latter was at Everton and reflected how both of them could not quite believe they were meeting here, for this. This is a happy place during weeks like these.
Mainoo and Branthwaite are not the only fresh faces hoping to propel themselves forward in the queue. Cole Palmer is 21 with only two caps, but few Premier League players are having a better season. James Maddison and Jarrod Bowen are both 27, supposed senior players. Both have five England caps and are probably on the fringes of staying or going.
Being on the grass counts for plenty; you can only impress if the manager can watch you around your potential teammates. There are whispers across this squad that will spread to those who are not here. Competition for places is hard when the limit is 23 players this summer. There are high-class opponents waiting for them tonight (Brazil) and on Tuesday (Belgium), ranked directly below England in fifth and fourth. England have lost three of their last four against Belgium and beaten Brazil once in 11 attempts. The key, for those younger and older, new and established, is to lose
the fear. Tense up now, before the pressure ramps up until it is so loud it thumps in your head at night, and doubts form about your suitability for the fight. Even then, there is no certainty. The reason managers like experience is because it offers a degree of control.
But nobody talks of fear, even if they think it. These are the nights on which dreams are sketched out, when nascent international footballers can stake their claim to be part of something potentially mighty. One goal, one block, one “that first touch”.
Forget the flag, one moment.
If you are able to calm your anger, ever so slightly, at a few colours added to a flag on back of the collar of the latest England shirt for the first time since 2010, when nobody seemed overly bothered by it, there is something more meaningful for your attention.
Seriously, whether you consider it to be a “playful update”, as maker Nike argues, or an attack on our identity devaluing a millennium of English history, set all your differences aside and recognise the real scandal here: that a new England shirt costs more than a return flight to the European Championship this summer.
It’s kind of been lost in the swell of outrage, the back and front pages, the fan forums awash with furious comments, the radio debates, all centred around a colourful cross you will barely be able to see when England play at Euro 2024, that prices of the thing it is printed on have hiked again, during a cost-of-living crisis. Compare to a decade ago and England shirts for all ages have increased in price ahead of inflation. The top-price England shirt – the “authentic” jersey to be worn by the players on the pitch with the “advanced breathability” you simply cannot get with the replica shirt – now comes in at £124.99 for adults. A quick check online and at time of writing I can buy return flights to cities across Germany during Euro 2024 for half the price.
And that’s not even the worst thing about this.
Since 2014, there has been a 54.7 per cent increase in cost for replica shirts for “older children” – between ages eight and 15 – and a 37.5 per cent increase in the cost for “younger children”, from three to eight.
Both shirts, priced now at £64.99 and £54.99, would be around a tenner cheaper if they had gone up in line with inflation. And that’s following the Consumer Price Index, so it already factors in the huge inflationary if you can, for increases of the past few years. They’re not even the most expensive children’s shirts. Nike’s website and the official England store sell an authentic one for older kids, too, for £119.99 – an extra £55 so your teenager’s skin can breathe (last time I checked it was only essential that either your nose or mouth could absorb oxygen, but I’m no scientist). Oh, and do we just all ignore the fact that children’s clothing is exempt from VAT? Should the kids’ shirts not be 20 per cent cheaper? Could that not be passed on to the “customer”, as football executives increasingly like to consider supporters?
The older children’s authentic shirt is only four per cent cheaper than the adults’ one.
It’s all exploiting England fans, at
A shirt like Harry Kane’s, complete with flag (top) will cost £124.99 a time when they can least afford it. It’s squeezing the last pound out of people who have nothing left to give. It’s profiteering on children, at a time when latest figures show hundreds of thousands more are being drawn into poverty.
You can talk about supply and demand, point out that the authentic adult shirt was sold out on the Nike website the day after it was launched, but you would miss the point.
This isn’t about the people who can afford it – there are plenty of rich people around. This is about the ones who can’t, the millions who are priced out of buying the latest shirt to support their country, as they were priced out of buying the ones two years before it.
And there is definitely a wider debate to be had about if the England shirt needs to follow the brutal trajectory of capitalism that has left 4.3m children – around a third – living in poverty, according to the latest data from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The FA is a not-for-profit organisation that has received millions in public funding over the years. Energy bills have shot up, food prices have risen, petrol, public transport, bills for TV, internet and telephones, and now a jersey to support your country will set you back more than what some people will spend on their groceries in a month. When approached about the pricing, a Nike spokesperson told me, “We offer various styles of football jerseys, giving consumers more options to choose from. Styles at higher price points typically feature significantly more innovation, fit, and material updates, while lower-priced styles may include an adapted version of that same innovation and/or other fit and material differences.”
It kind of missed the point – but then by getting wound up by a minuscule flag, so is everyone else.