1966 v 1998

REMEMBER 1966?

Bobby Moore wiping his hands on his shorts before accepting the World Cup trophy from our radiant young Queen? Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles.

Marvellous, eh Ron Manager? Actually, everything was marvellous then: miniskirts and Mini cars; maximum optimism because Harold Wilson had secured a bigger mandate to modernise the nation. A man of the people, Harold, a man who liked his football. A land of hope and glory? Yes, that sounds like where we lived. Dream on. There is an alternative story of 1966 which we should keep in mind as the BigKick-Off of France98 approaches. This version reminds us that although miniskirts and Mini cars were all very nice, not everything was rosy; that our boys looked pretty ordinary for most of the tournament and Geoff Hurst's extra-time "goal" probably should not have been allowed; that Britain was rife with industrial unrest and in the grip of a sterling crisis. Glibly we are informed that England's victory "united the nation". Depends which nation you're on about: a few million Scots saw things rather differently. In short, the alternative account of that so- called golden year confronts us English with our talent for using the successes of our national football team to tell ourselves fat fibs. Of course, it is not only the English who fool themselves with football. Nor is it foolish to see how our football culture frequently symbolises aspects of the English identity. Unfortunately, some of the more potent metaphors have told us harsh home truths, particularly those generated by events off the pitch. Few now dispute that travelling English hooligans have demonstrated the worst of the English character - brutish, bigoted and proud of it. But if defeat sobers us with shame, success goes to our heads. So if Shearer, Seaman, Beckham and co give a good account of themselves in the coming weeks what will we decide it means about us as a people? And how grandly self-deluding will our conclusions be? There have been lots of clues already, many of them in the philosophy and conduct of England coach Glenn Hoddle. His exclusion of Paul Gascoigne (and, in a smaller way, his dressing-down of Teddy Sheringham) might in itself be seen as a clear sign of the times - a triumph for the self-disciplined team ethic over chaotic individualism. The Prime Minister would approve. Actually, the wretched Gascoigne sends out mixed messages. Superficially, he is a very contemporary figure, New Lad in excelsis. You could also argue persuasively that mistrusting brilliance is nothing new in England team bosses - Hoddle himself was such a victim in his playing days. Yet ultimately Gascoigne the man represents the worst of English male tradition (ask his wife), while Gascoigne the player personifies the spirit of England's football past, all instinctive working-class wizardry and non-professionalism. He speaks to the same soccer sentiment that prefers blood and guts to bloodless pragmatism and the technical subtleties we associate with the Continentals, especially those beastly Germans. This self-image appeals to the English media, especially when we fall at the final hurdles - it helps make defeat seem glorious. If it asserts itself during the French campaign, it will come as no surprise. But if we prosper under Hoddle some will interpret it as evidence that we're becoming more outward-looking, more "European", more modern, don't you know. THIS symbolic push-and-pull between Old England and New is an underlying feature of our present World Cup fever, just as it is at the top end of our domestic game. The marketing of the Premier League has fostered the impression that the tension between them is resolved. Sky has sold us an updated, post-Hillsborough game which none the less remains the People's Game - a game with roots, an inclusive game in which the mighty and the meek hold a common stake. If you saw Sean Bean's prole-passion adverts for Sky's soccer coverage last season, you'll know exactly what I mean: "It's our game," he emoted. "It's part of our country, it's part of our history." The same trick is pulled in some of the television advertisements in which the top England players star. See Beckham portrayed as the personification of the schoolboy dream. See Shearer going to McDonald's or beating the dust out of the family rug in the name of Lucozade, a modern Everyman umbilically connected with England's yesterdays. (Very Old England in lots of ways, "wor Alan".) Get my drift? English football is being sold in the same way that Blair United sold the message of New Labour, New Britain. "Traditional values in a modern setting," was how John Prescott put it. Coming from him it sounded like a market trader hawking long johns to men in shell suits. From others it seemed more convincing, a political means of carrying the best from the past into a brave new future. But the same key question hangs over New Football, New Labour and the putative New Britain: will the substance really match up to the spin? In the case of football? Yes and no. A successful English World Cup on the pitch and off will help vindicate the reform of the game and represent a rejection of the xenophobic, bullet-headed Englishness which too many of our fans have previously exported - our historic national sport triumphantly updated. But there will be a downside, too. It will help us to keep turning a blind eye to the forgotten effects of our football boom, whereby the rich have become obscenely richer while many of the people who have stuck by the game through the lean, unfashionable years have been priced out of the glamorous new stadiums. This may be the alternative version of 1998, the one history will ignore, just as it may well ignore a parallel political story of the beginning of the breaking of New Labour's promises to reduce unemployment and hospital waiting lists - all lost in red-rose- tinted memories of Cool Britannia, Hoddle's England heroes flying St George's flag and, of course, the PM's winning grin.

Copyright 1998
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