Well who’d’a thought that two days before the final we little Englanders would still be talking about ‘coming home’ in earnest??? Though there are many who talk nothing else for 365 days every fucking year. As Casper Schmeikel pointed out, the European Trophy has never ever been in England, so how’s that ‘home’? But we don’t care about such details, Pedantic fucking Dane, ‘isss comin’ ‘ome, innit’. And all we have to do is beat the Italians. How hard can that be?

But cynical Danes aside, the ‘comin home’ thing now carries its own meaning for (almost said ‘Brits’, but no!- for-) English people. And you shouldn’t miss that the line ‘30 years of hurt’ was written 25 barren years ago. They need to re-write the song, but obviously, whilst waiting for a year with the right and rhyming phonetic, we might go and ruin it by winning the bloody thing!!! That would be a tragedy for music and would seriously dent the future income of Messrs Baddeil and Skinner. But we’d take it in a moment.

Of course, the main man in all this, the dude who, come win or lose, becomes elevated to the Gods of Legend, is Gareth Southgate. And that is definitely his rightful place. He is charming, humble, intelligent and lovely. I would bear him children, pronouns notwithstanding… ok, the womb’s a bit of an issue, but NOTHING is impossible with the right amount of self-definition. Gareth has taken us (the entire nation) further than any previous manager. And there have been a few. All serial losers. Gareth is a winner. Ok, his penalty taking is questionable but the fact is, he got ‘right back on that horse’ and had a fabulous career after his miss. Which endears him even more strongly to the plebs (me and you). Because we’d all have missed it too. Its not as easy as it looks. Just ask Harry Kane. Or Killian Mbappe.

Wednesday night’s win was simply incredible. The total definition of ‘it doesn’t matter how you win, long as you do’. Was it a penalty? Who cares? Was theirs a free kick??? Many say no. Would we have had a penalty 2 minutes later for a more offensive tackle? Probably. But its irrelevant. Totally. We won, they didn’t, the final’s on Sunday and I’ll be ‘there’! Which I won’t be for the Wimbledon men’s final the same day because we’re off on another mini-break. Oh yes, England holds many wonders, plus many types of rain and cloud, and we intend to try them all. But a Wimbledon final without the sublime Mnsr Federer? Not worth renting space on my own sofa.

Happy Friday

A xxxx