Passage to the next round

I don’t find it easy being an England fan.

It isn’t the pathological ability to fail at the earliest possible opportunity - I support Newcastle so I’m used to and indeed expect that.

It’s all the baggage that goes with it. The endless, torturous ways the commentators find to work a reference to 1966 into every game. I’m sick of hearing it, so it must be so infuriating for anyone from one of the other ‘home nations’. And it’s the fans. That god awful brass band that still can’t master ‘The Great Escape’, despite playing it constantly for decades; booing the National anthem of every opponent before massacring their own; booing their own players for making a statement against racism; behaving like the selfish, entitled, tone death bores they always are; singing offensive songs about a war even their parents probably weren’t alive for; brightening up every tournament considerably the minute they slope off back home.

I still want the team to win though, and the first victory in a meaningful match against Germany since that year the commentators have such a fixation with was pretty special.