New Times,
New Thinking.

  1. Comment
5 July 2021

Gareth Southgate’s England are showing this country at its best

The England manager and his players champion an inclusive form of patriotism as opposed to the xenophobic nationalism of the reactionary right.  

By Martin Fletcher

I lost interest in professional football in the 1990s. The players put me off. They were, or appeared to be, a bunch of overpaid, ill-behaved prima donnas.

I no longer think that. Today’s England team has won me over. At a time of bitter dispute over what it means to be English, these gifted young men are displaying all the values that we as a country once held dear.

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