Our correspondent lanegreene was punched by an England fan on a bus home from Wembley stadium. The mob “loved every moment”, he explains, but the subsequent kindness of well-wishers showed the nation’s decency
“YOU HAVE to be prepared to lose,” I tell my son. Denmark has a good shot; they’ve beaten bigger teams and they are on a high, but England are too, and they’re at home. You can’t get into sport if you can’t take heartbreak, because winning doesn’t mean anything without the possibility of losing. Whatever happens, I say, Denmark has had a brilliant tournament, and we’re going to have a good time. My nine-year-old wasn’t used to the emotional crush of a big defeat.
Things felt less tense once we neared the Danish section, though plenty of English fans were there. The singing in the beer queues got louder. There was a distinct paucity of women among the England fans, whereas the Danes were more evenly balanced. One Danish woman made a shushing sound to a group of ten or so singing at the top of their lungs. They ignored her. An England fan stuck a foam pointer-finger into my wife’s breasts and leered.
On the Jubilee Line home, a gang started singing: “We’re gonna rape the Italians… We’re gonna rape the Italians…” My wife said, sharply and loud enough for them to hear, “Ew.” The chant died down, as my son fell asleep on her shoulder, the flags on his cheeks by now a Jackson Pollock of red and white. Once again, I wondered why people who should be elated sounded so furious. On the train, a passenger congratulated us, and told us how much he’d loved Copenhagen on his visits.
Then it came, a shot to my stomach that knocked me back a couple of steps. I hadn’t seen it, but now a short, shaved-headed fan in a white t-shirt was bobbing in the thrill of it, grinning to his friends and staring at me, no doubt hoping I would get off the bus. I did some arithmetic, declined, and instead started shouting something silly like “you should be ashamed of yourselves.” They loved every moment. Maybe that’s what they wanted to hear.
But at some point that becomes tribalism. Late in the match, resigned to Denmark losing, I remembered that the Danish and English flags were almost identical with reversed colours. “The Sneetches”, a children’s fable by Dr Seuss, tells of the Star-Belly Sneetches, who feel superior to the Sneetches without stars. The desire to belong needs contrast, it seems.
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