Football hasn’t come home yet ... but it may have set off

At yesterday’s half time whistle in the England-Panama game, I tweeted: ‘I have to say just at the moment it would appear to have at least set off on its way home.’

By ‘it’, I meant football, and by tweeting that, I was doing exactly what three Lions warns you not to do: hope. You might expect after five goals in 45 minutes that it might be OK to express, so cautiously, the hope that, as Frank Skinner and I once said, football is indeed coming home.

But you would not, then, be someone who has spent their entire adult life watching England.

Watching England, that is, raise expectations, create excitement, project happy futures, only to crush all this with a disappointing performance later in the tournament – never, of course, quite late enough.

But I think, this time, and I say this still with a sense that I shouldn’t, it is ok to hope.

And I know Panama are one of the worst teams in the competition, and that we still haven’t played anyone any good, and that it’s all incredibly early in the tournament. I know all that.

the difference is that not since Euro 96 have I seen England play in a major tournament like this: with, whisper it, joy. Frank and I live on the same road, and I headed over to his to watch the game. When each of England’s six goals went in, we couldn’t help but celebrate like mad.

We raised our fists and cheered loud enough to frighten small children. this team had cracked open our cynical seen- it- all- before football hearts. When Jesse Lingard scored that third goal, particularly, we couldn’t quite believe it. We felt that here was something new.

there is a sense that this young team are not saddled with the great weight of national expectation.

It is so unusual for an England player, so many of whom have failed to match their club potential when they put on the national shirt.

And then there is Kane. Every time he touched the ball, the atmosphere in Frank’s living room, as well as on the pitch, became electric. I have confidence that if the ball arrives at our centreforward’s feet, he will put it in the net. And this is a massive thing, as an England fan, to be able to say. I have even grown fond of our manager, Gareth Southgate.

there is a poetry in the idea that this man, who inadvertently shattered the Euro 96 dream by fluffing a penalty, might be the one to lead us to a greater prize.

I may be getting ahead of myself, but I particularly like what I see of his relationship with the players.

When Lingard was substituted late in the second half yesterday, Southgate held him in an affectionate half- nelson and whispered something in his ear. Lingard smiled like a boy whose dad had just given him the best compliment ever.

Although I remain unconvinced by Southgate’s waistcoat, which clearly is too tight and probably led to his dislocated shoulder last week. But either way, I think it’s alright to indulge ourselves, at least for now, in this very unfamiliar feeling: England have started a major competition well. We should be allowed to shout and cheer and laugh.

We’ve won our first two games. In Euro 96 or Italia 90 we didn’t do that. Even in 1966 we didn’t do that. I don’t know if football is coming home. Yet. But I do believe it’s googling flights. Or rather: I do believe – deep breath – it’s all right to hope that it might be.