Yeah, plenty of people covering themselves in disgrace. If the recent stuff was used as a reason to avoid giving us a tournament in future I wouldn't complain.
It’s a bit of a unique one as the COVID restrictions meant people knew for sure there would be many empty seats that they could try and get away with. Hard to do at club games with season tickets and mostly being full. But we need to crack down on everyone involved in all the crap around these matches to prove we are worthy in future. Even booing an anthem doesn’t happen by mistake. Just get rid of these people from football. Instant life bans and off to the cells.
The thing is that booing happened in multiple games and it wouldn’t have been the same people getting tickets for every match. I feel that accepting it the first time encouraged those who did it the next time and the time after that, and each time gets more and more hooligans to feel braver. Just imagine there was a riot where a bunch of minority fans were attacked. If nothing were done all those people in the shadows would come to the forefront and be looking for opportunities.
I couldn’t really talk about it straight after as the disappointment was too much coming so close, being ahead on penalties at home and earlier ahead for a big part of normal time. As you say it was a great tournament regardless with many good games. I do like our players and the overall current England setup and Southgate is easy to get behind regardless of results. He feels like a genuinely good guy. At some point I will look back on it all as it definitely united most people in the county for the last month and being in the final was a feeling we’ve never had before.Yeah the last 48 hours have been thoroughly depressing in some reactions, while also entirely predictable shamefully so but also there is a silver lining with these players and team and the way they have conducted themselves and been a credit to our nation even if some of those so called "fans"/"Bandwagon jumpers" have done things off the pitch to drag our nation through the mud at the same time, I guess nothings ever perfect in this country (or any for that matter) but there is always signs of hope around and good people will always outshine the worst of us.
Although Sunday didnt go our way and we are still dealing with the aftermath of it all and some uglyness from our perspective its easy to lose sight of what was overall a wonderful tournament on the whole and there were many uplifting and happy moments even from some of the most horrific events that occurred during the event, its been a real emotional rollercoaster of good and bad and that is why we love the game so as it reflects life, good and bad, so well.
When I think back to Euro 2020 its going to stick out for so many reasons, just for the way it was at such a unique time what with the pandemic moving it back a year and things still not quite back to normal, the second day when a player nearly lost his life but thankfully recovered to tell the tale and his team mates being a credit to the Danish nation, that crazy 48 hours when we had two mad games back to back both ending 3-3 in 90 minutes and then England v Germany which was an amazing sight to see Wembley almost full and bouncing again, just the sound was incredible. Italy ran out deserved winners in the end and played some great football at times but everyone contributed and we had plenty of great games and loads of stunning goals which is what you want out of these things.
One of my favourite images from this whole tournament is the England celebration after the Denmark semi, it encapsulate's a moment when we were all together even if it was just for moment...........
The F1 driver Lando Norris had his watch stolen off his wrist. It was like they were trying to prove everyone right about England still being the land of hooligans.
He really shouldn't have went to the Euros.
I kind of went into shock as the final penalty went in and just wanted to get to bed asap! Didn’t think about it at all for a few days, although the other nasty stuff happening gave me something to focus on and talk about. Still haven’t rewatched any of it and certainly not the pens! If this same match had been the semi I think I could have quite easily accepted losing to Italy, even on pens, as the final would still have been another big hurdle, whoever it was against.
Yeah the last few days have felt very empty and numb, especially with all the depressing news coming out of it when it could have had the ultimate happy ending but as fans we should be used to it but still hurts when it happens. This felt a bit different to the World Cup when we went out as that was a bit of surprise to get that far, this time we had a genuine shot, at home, and got so very close.
