For England and their fans, good times have never felt so good

Happiness, an emotion suppressed throughout England for much too long, washed over Wembley like a flood tide. True, there were strong notes of triumphalism, catharsis, even schadenfreude, as Gareth Southgate’s team became the nation’s first since 1966 to bundle Germany out of a major tournament, but this was an evening destined to be recalled above all else for pure, unalloyed elation. Never can a stadium technically only half-occupied have felt so full to bursting.

You might have expected the swell of Football’s Coming Home to bring the bounce to this seething throng, especially with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, the song’s co-creators, back in the building. Instead, it was the sentiment behind Sweet Caroline, the ultimate singalong for the drunk and delirious, that best crystallised the giddy mood. Neil Diamond is 80 now, but at this rate he might yet see it as a No.1 single after a 52-year wait.

England striker Harry Kane.Credit:Getty

This, it turns out, is what it feels like when you purge a quarter of a century’s accumulated angst. 1996 and all that: it is suddenly rather passe. The only comparisons of which England fans cared to be reminded were with ’66, the last occasion that their side had eliminated Germany from knockout competition. A happy portent? They could be forgiven for dreaming.

One look at the scoreline suggested Southgate could scarcely have scripted this better. A third goal at these Euros for Raheem Sterling, underneath the Wembley arch that he saw take shape from his old Stonebridge council estate, was poetic enough. A first for Harry Kane, 11 minutes later, brought the manager his ultimate vindication. A rebuke to his detractors?

Yes, you would have to give him that. Whatever happens from here, whatever roadblocks lurk along England’s precarious path ahead, he will always have June 29, 2021, the moment when a career once marked by penalty anguish had the perfect bookend.

Exhilaration for England is rarely so raw or uncomplicated. And yet this unforgettable pay-off was one for which they had to wait. With over an hour gone, the mood was not quite turning, but it was unbearably tense. The “Super Jack” chants for Grealish were assuming an intensity that Southgate could no longer ignore.

Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George attended the match. Credit:Getty Images

Fans were growing agitated by the tactics, by the hideous suspicion that England’s best hope of resolving the impasse was through penalties. And then, with one deft nudge of Sterling’s boot, the heavy clouds above Wembley seemed to part, the breakthrough sparking the type of all-in frenzy we had just about forgotten.

Shirts were ripped off en masse. Strangers were kissed. Larcenously-priced lagers were tossed in the air with barely a backwards glance. Supporters surged on to blue canopies intended, laughably, to retain a measure of social distance between the pitch and the stands. The joy of the scene took many forms, from Southgate’s fist-pump to the overwhelmed expression of seven-year-old Prince George. But perhaps it was best conveyed by the grown men rolling around on the floor.

It is an immutable English trait to bottle up one’s feelings. There is a traditional fondness for preferring messages to be mired in subtext, not shouted from the rooftops. Consider, then, the point at which the national character changed. This was an occasion framed both by 55 years of football frustration and by 15 months of the most severe social restrictions the country has seen in peacetime.

It was surely fitting, then, to close those chapters by shedding the inhibitions. For England, this was not just a victory, but a wild, intoxicating communion.

Telegraph, London

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