As it happened, I was here in England when the Brexit vote occurred two years ago. The night before the vote, I had dined with some European students who were concerned about their education and their personal relationships, both of which depended on free movement between Britain and Europe. The next day I heard from a cabbie how thrilled he was at the vote, because he was convinced money would come back from Europe and save the National Health Service. I witnessed the complacency of the papers announcing the polls showing a Remain victory, and the despair of educated people following the vote.
Two years on and Britain is still in the throes of polarised politics, even as the May government struggles to survive under criticism (much of which is manufactured by the media to sell papers). The snap election May stupidly called made everything worse. The government has an impossible job, and the Labour party has bizarre leadership and strange ideas of how to garner support. The Lib Dems continue to languish, even as their policy proposals make the most sense.
Britain is also having a heat wave right now, with everyone talking about how unseasonable the weather is. (I’ve been here each summer for the past several years, and always during a heat wave, so I’d say this is the new normal season — I’d call it “summer”.) The moors caught fire and everyone is dragging out rarely used garden hoses to save their gardens before water rationing is declared.
But now the England football team has been winning at the World Cup. You can complain about the government, optimistically refer to the “fine” weather as you sweat in your sandals and trousers cut with scissors at the knees (the train conductor had done this), or you can watch the football. So while in Cambridge, I heard there was an opportunity to view the quarter-finals at the air-conditioned cinema instead of in a pub, getting elbowed and beer-showered. You had to get the free tickets in the morning for the 14:30 match, so I did and got one before they ran out.
I’m a fair weather fan of big events: Olympics, Super Bowl, World Series, Wimbledon, World Cup. Not really a sports fan, but I had watched England win to get to this point, and wanted very much to see the match with other fans, instead of in my dorm room by myself. The two guys next to me drank copious amounts of beer. One spent most of the match in the beer line, while the other (after politely asking me whom I was rooting for) yelled at the players about everything they did, while the similarly-aged woman next to me told me she was rooting for England, of course, but weren’t those Swedish players handsome?
When England won, everyone was so happy and excited and completely ignoring the challenge of the semi-finals. The guys told me, “see you back here for the final!” Out in the streets people poured out of doorways, singing “It’s coming home!” (meaning the Cup, I assume) and flying flags and causing police to become concerned.
I was happy for England, and not just the team and the fans. Although I heard more people ostentatiously avoiding the football (and many calling it “soccer”, which seemed to be a slur), many more were totally engaged. It had been 12 years since England had made quarter-finals, and 28 years since they’d won one.
And my thought was how wonderful this was for a country torn apart by all the antipathies and mistrust that’s gone along with Brexit. British people, like Americans, woke up after election day to find the nation they’d thought of as united actually divided by deep rifts. I was not the only one to believe that the football was important as a unifier – I heard coach Gareth Southgate say so too, along with many others.
Tonight I’ll watch the semi-finals (in a living room with a friend and sports fan), and think of so many people doing the same, having this at least in common with the “other” Britain.
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