“ENGLAND are a moments team, they don’t even play decent football.”
I’ve had Scottish friends, Southgate-out friends and people who aren’t even friends tell me this all through these Euros.
And yet, with England taking on Spain tomorrow night for the chance to end 58 years of hurt, my response to that is: “Who cares?”
Does it really matter if England have, at times this summer, needed a remarkable flash of inspiration to light up a poor performance?
Not really, we’re in the final, and that’s what tournament football is all about.
But then I’d go as far as to say, that’s what football is about as a whole.
Ask a fan to remember a performance, and surely it is usually only the exceptional that stand out (Germany 1 England 5, Newcastle United 4 PSG 1, Accrington Stanley 0 Bradford City 3 etc)?
But there is something about a moment that you can remember and cherish forever.
What do City fans look back on in that famous League Cup semi-final second leg at Villa Park in 2013? James Hanson’s header.
What do City fans recall of the play-off semi clash in 2017 at Valley Parade against Fleetwood Town? Rory McArdle’s winner.
How about the superb victory at Wrexham back in February? Andy Cook’s last-gasp goal to separate the two sides.
Performance-wise, Bantams fans will have witnessed better than those three games, yet they are arguably the abiding good memories of those three seasons.
Okay maybe instead of Cook’s goal it would be Bobby Pointon’s screamer against Tranmere on Good Friday, but again, that was an incredible moment in time in what was otherwise a fairly routine 2-0 win.
It does not even have to be a goal.
I’ve been to St James’ Park to watch my beloved Newcastle many times now, and my greatest memory from being in the stands is probably Nick Pope’s stunning last-minute save against Leicester last May, and the subsequent blowing of the final whistle, that secured us Champions League football for the first time in 20 years.
The game was dire, but those two moments at the end were ones I will remember and treasure for the rest of my life.
Moments can sweep you up too in a way that performances rarely, if ever, can.
I like Bradford City, you learn to care and grow an affection for a football team that you cover for work.
As explained above though, I’m not a Bantams supporter, not that you would know that based on me jumping on City’s media team in excitement when Cook scored a stunning solo goal against Mansfield the other year.
Four days later, I yelped and hollered when Scott Banks curled home a beauty at Sutton.
I’ll also never forget being one of the very few in attendance for Kian Scales’ stunning first professional goal, at Colchester in March 2021.
As for being in the stands, I cheered as loudly as anyone in the Kop when Pointon crashed home his ‘other screamer’ last season, against Newport on the final day.
Other than maybe the brave defensive rearguard in that Mansfield game with 10-men, I remember very little of those games as a whole, but all four goals are seared on my brain forever.
That’s because, for me, football is and always will be a moments game.
Jude Bellingham’s unbelievable overhead kick against Slovakia in the last-16 of this year’s Euros will be remembered by anyone who saw it for years to come, long after we forget the abject 94 minutes from England that preceded it.
I’ll always remember the euphoria of watching it at Dewsbury Rams’ club bar after covering Bulls’ win there that day, and racing to the bar to claim my free pint that came as a result of the goal.
Switzerland in the quarters wasn’t particularly good either, another game England came close to losing against a team weaker than them on paper.
But will I always treasure that unbelievable set of penalties, which I watched on my phone by a set of bins in a car park? Yes, I absolutely will.
As for Wednesday night’s semi-final against the Netherlands, I actually stood to win quite a lot of money on a sweepstake if the Dutch lifted the trophy or reached the final, with a nice little bonus if Cody Gakpo ended the tournament as top scorer.
Yet in the end I genuinely could not have cared less, with Ollie Watkins’ brilliant bolt from the blue winner, and the celebrations in the pub that followed, worth a thousand times more than any of that.
I met up with a good friend from Andy’s Man Club after the game, and me, him and his pal sang and drank the night away.
That all came off the back of that Watkins’ winner, with none of us caring a jot that England’s second half display was relatively dire.
Football, it’s a moments game. Cherish them when they come along.
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