The England team has done the nation proud – and not just through their goalscoring

Editorial: This has been an exceptional performance, athletically and morally

(Dave Brown)

In the end, it was – almost – a bit of a miniature penalty shoot-out, a fitting way for a team managed by Gareth Southgate to get to their cherished Euros final, the first ever.

It was a somewhat homely local Premier League affair, an average Wednesday night with Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur) just getting the better of Kasper Schmeichel (Leicester City). Were it not for Raheem Sterling forcing a rapid equaliser through Simon Kjaer’s own goal, Kane wouldn’t have got his chance.

The win had its rough edges, but England has been on the wrong side of those in the past. Portugal, France, Germany, Spain, and, indeed, Denmark didn’t quite make it. Ronaldo, Torres, De Bruyne, Lukaku, Mbappe... all gone home. England made it, albeit with some luck, which hasn’t always been the case. They might even beat an equally uneven Italian side.

It certainly makes a change. People who might not have heard of Mason Mount or Declan Rice before were suddenly tweeting about the tension and passion of the game, and exhibiting patriotic feelings. Such is the narcotic power of the game, and such is the special appeal this comradely team.

Throughout their campaign, Gareth Southgate, the team and the support staff have done England proud, and Britain too, given that, alas, Wales and Scotland didn’t quite make it to this round, despite their valiant efforts. Mr Southgate’s letter to the nation was not only about the football, but about what he and his players feel they represent – a force for unity and a source of pride. They have insisted – despite some nasty booing from a minority of fans and, metaphorically, a minority of politicians – on taking the knee, as a gesture of support for all campaigns and all those working for racial justice, including the very broad, informal Black Lives Matter. It is derided as “gesture politics”. Well, sometimes the right sort of gestures matter. Why else do we award the George Cross to the people of the NHS?

One government source recently spoke mysteriously about Mr Southgate and these other ambassadors for the nation as being part of some “deep woke” conspiracy, adding that Mr Southgate’s message to the nation was “suspiciously well written”. That says everything about the snobbery of the establishment. The very idea that these honourable and responsible young men are supporters of some violent Marxist movement is absurd. It is no disrespect to suggest that Harry Kane hasn’t been much concerned about the labour theory of value, chairing impromptu seminars about the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeois state or kicking Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme before the Croatia game. Certainly, there has been a spectre haunting Europe, but that spectre is the remarkable revival of English football.

Having done such a superb job these last weeks, the squad have vanquished their detractors at home as well as their opponents abroad (excepting an hard won draw with Scotland). Like his famous storied predecessor, Sir Alf Ramsey, Mr Southgate is a gentleman, and a shrewd judge of players and games. For a change, the armchair managers have been silenced by this choices and tactics, indeed confounded in the case of Raheem Sterling. Unassuming, unpretentious (perhaps apart from his former taste for waistcoats) but above all professional, Mr Southgate has provided a fine role model, an example of redemption (from the unfortunate events of 1996), determination and leadership. The best football managers possess same kind of qualities that successful leaders in business or the military do. Our politicians, as has been noted, could learn much from Southgate’s straightforward style.

The best teams, as here, work as an organic whole, selflessly and disciplined. There have been no petulant lashings out, no sendings off, and no larking around off the pitch. That has not always been the pattern with an England team.

And so on to the next stage. As no one needs reminding, it is the first major tournament final for any British football team since 1966, and at least part of the nation is euphoric. The country, like the team, needs a fillip. It seems to have stopped thinking about the last world war, the defeats of the past, and the culture wars of the present. They deserve the thanks of a nation, and some suitably lavish gestures as well.