The Euros give a glimpse of a purer patriotism

{"text":[[{"start":9.07,"text":"Two weeks before Euro 2024 began, it came to me like a vision: it was time for a work sweepstake. "},{"start":15.649000000000001,"text":"So I clicked send all and hoped that more than one person would be interested. "},{"start":19.342,"text":"I needn’t have worried. "},{"start":20.759,"text":"I’ve never had so many responses to a group email. "}],[{"start":24.700000000000003,"text":"The enthusiastic reception means I’ve ended up running two sweepstakes — one with allocated countries and one more complicated: involving goal predictions and a feverishly updated spreadsheet. "},{"start":34.742000000000004,"text":"It has triggered another side in me (did I mention the spreadsheet? "},{"start":38.284000000000006,"text":"and in my colleagues too. "},{"start":39.914,"text":"One even brought in a Euro wall chart for the office while another ungenerously hailed me as a ladette, which I hope will be quietly retired as a nickname. "}],[{"start":48.040000000000006,"text":"The office this year has been a microcosm of what the Euros initiate. "},{"start":51.982000000000006,"text":"Even my colleagues who don’t like football have been invoking it as bonus snark: Oh, is something happening today? "},{"start":57.89900000000001,"text":"one intoned on a recent England match day. "},{"start":60.479000000000006,"text":"The tournament encourages a different energy in both its followers and dissenters. "},{"start":64.50900000000001,"text":"The inevitable starting points for conversation — “How are you” or “how was your weekend”: questions doomed for mundane answers or hedged responses — have turned to new and knowing half phrases. "},{"start":74.06400000000001,"text":"“Presumably you saw . . .?” It is not that anybody has changed, but that a dynamic has opened up. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

When Bellingham’s bicycle kick landed the ball firmly in the back of the net, I felt myself as one of many exclaiming at the TV

"}],[{"start":79.34,"text":"With the Euros, there’s an inevitable mutuality. "},{"start":82.59400000000001,"text":"It’s more wholesome than club football, where my Nottingham Forest scarf will prompt unpredictable reactions when I’m out and about. "},{"start":88.98700000000001,"text":"Instead, the days bring flashes of acknowledgment that we live amid many who care and fixate on the same thing. "},{"start":94.792,"text":"Sometimes that’s just a nod from a passer-by when I’m carrying a four-pack before a game, or small talk with a delivery driver. "},{"start":101.434,"text":"Sometimes it isn’t even about acknowledging but supposing — it acts as a reminder of our connections: that our evenings might have looked similar, and that the emotions packed within were likely shared. "},{"start":111.027,"text":"It was a recognition, strangely, that I repeatedly had during the pandemic — suddenly grouped together by a shared experience and knowing whoever I passed on the street was caught up in the same foreign world. "}],[{"start":122.28,"text":"The Euros is a cheerier equivalent. "},{"start":124.784,"text":"When Jude Bellingham’s bicycle kick landed the ball firmly in the back of the net last weekend, I felt myself as one of many exclaiming at the TV, shown the impossible that I had been willing the team to commit. "},{"start":135.202,"text":"I could see it like a kaleidoscope: one of millions on their sofa, at the pub or driving with the radio on, urging something to happen — followed by the thrilling shock when, beyond all probability, the call was heard. "}],[{"start":147.42000000000002,"text":"These moments become markers of understanding, later to be repeated: poor old Scotland . . . did you see the look on Modrić’s face? "},{"start":154.437,"text":"how many times will Ronaldo fail to score before he finally retires? "},{"start":158.37900000000002,"text":"They become hints of a larger question — were you there? "},{"start":161.447,"text":"that hits more significantly than the fact of whether you simply watched a game of football. "},{"start":165.889,"text":"As shared sightings they act like pen strokes, drawing a collective map of what a country, together and apart, has witnessed. "},{"start":172.669,"text":"It only amplifies when you begin to think of the fans in other countries, making some of the same marks alongside their own. "}],[{"start":179.78000000000003,"text":"International football tournaments provoke in me a feeling that is usually unfamiliar — one of collectivity and representation. "},{"start":186.42200000000003,"text":"For a month, every few years, I taste what it is to be patriotic. "},{"start":190.61400000000003,"text":"More than that, it gives me an idea of what a purer patriotism could be. "},{"start":194.84400000000002,"text":"I recognise the irony — English football fans hardly have a reputation for healthy patriotism. "},{"start":200.24900000000002,"text":"But it’s what supporting England does for me. "}],[{"start":203.55000000000004,"text":"England is a complicated place, with lurking racism and tired ideas of nationality. "},{"start":208.82900000000004,"text":"We are a rich country yet I can barely get a train, or a doctor’s appointment, let alone a home to call my own. "},{"start":214.80900000000003,"text":"All these and more make Englishness and a sense of collective identity fraught. "},{"start":218.70200000000006,"text":"But for a time, while our players are in the base camp, something in the air agitates and resettles. "},{"start":224.05700000000004,"text":"I can feel it. "},{"start":225.12400000000005,"text":"It makes me aspire to an Englishness I’m comfortable with. "},{"start":228.17900000000003,"text":"It’s a long-term game, one that far outlasts the buzz of a tournament. "},{"start":232.15900000000005,"text":"But it’s a welcome side effect. "}],[{"start":234.95000000000005,"text":"Rebecca Watson’s new novel, ‘I Will Crash’, is published by Faber "}],[{"start":239.09000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/162102-1720246724.mp3"}