Sixty Years of Hurt: 6. England v Hope

Summary

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The History Podcast – Sixty Years of Hurt: 6. England v Hope

Date: June 20, 2026
Host: David Baddiel (BBC Radio 4)

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Overview

This episode, "England v Hope," explores what the journey of English football—through triumph and heartbreak over sixty years—reveals about English identity. David Baddiel brings together footballers, historians, comedians, and analysts to examine how the evolution of England’s national football teams, particularly the transformative rise of the Lionesses, reflects and shapes broader questions about Englishness, hope, and the perpetual search for meaning and belonging in sport.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. National Anthems and Awkward English Identity

• England’s Anthem: Baddiel opens by reflecting on how "God Save the King" doesn’t capture a sense of liberation as other nations' anthems do, leading to a tension in expressing national identity.
  • “England doesn't really have, like other countries, a song of liberation. Which means that singing our one lustily and unironically can feel awkward, at least for some.” — David Baddiel (01:52)

2. Women’s Football: From Bans to Breakthroughs

• Historic Ban: Football historian Jean Williams recounts the post-WWI surge in women’s football, the 1921 FA ban, and the lengthy road to acceptance.
  • “Almost half a century it took for that ban to be lifted. This win is for the trailblazers over the decades...” — Narrator (02:26)
• Lionesses as Underdogs: The Lionesses’ 2022 success is framed as both a sporting and gender triumph, easier for fans to embrace due to its underdog narrative.
  • “The triumph emotionally of the lionesses, it's also a gender triumph. It's a triumph for women as much as a triumph for England.” — David Baddiel (05:00)
  • “Yeah, I think you've articulated that perfectly. I was just nodding.” — Jean Williams (05:36)

3. The Changing Narrative of English Football Fandom

• Cultural Moment: Comedian Maisie Adams reflects on collective emotion post-Lionesses' Euros win, the shift away from the perennial underdog identity, and fears of replicating the men’s team’s burdensome expectations.
  • “I burst into tears. It was a moment because I knew from then on it would be different.” — Maisie Adams (06:17)
  • “We've got all these fans since then who have only known victory, and it's a little bit like, oh, God, we're gonna end up like those, the men's fans...” — Maisie Adams (07:00)

4. The English Men’s Team: Talent, Trauma, and the Weight of Expectation

• The Curse Continues: The 2022 World Cup brings more heartbreak. Southgate’s tenure is dissected: progress is acknowledged, but old patterns of disappointment persist.
• The Managerial Shift: After Southgate, hiring Thomas Tuchel signals a desire for clinical, high-level management.
  • “I think Tuchel is an absolutely inspired decision to follow him.” — David Goldblatt (09:44)
  • “He's got all the chops that Southgate didn't have...” — David Goldblatt (09:52)
• Harry Kane as Archetype: Baddiel muses on Kane as a blend of “maverick and managerial” Englishness, questioning why reliability is undervalued:
  • “Why can't dependable be sort of sexy as well?” — David Baddiel (10:38)

5. Hope, Statistics, and the Reality of English Football Success

• Data vs. Narrative: Danny Finkelstein breaks down England’s realistic statistical chances: “somewhere between 5 and 10%” per tournament (11:20), challenging the narrative of perpetual underachievement.
  • “If your chance was 10% every time, you would expect to win only one in every 10 tournaments. 40 years.” — Danny Finkelstein (11:31)
• The Power of “What If”: English fans’ obsessive “what might have been” scenarios are recounted (missed goals, disallowed goals), with nostalgic pain recirculating through generations.
  • “How much do you occasionally find yourself… daydreaming about what might have been.” — David Baddiel (13:39)
  • “Every England game, I think about.” — David Seaman (14:25)

6. Culture, Class, and the Unique English Strain of Footballing Amateurism

• Nature and Play Style: Jonathan Wilson insightfully links England’s historic playing style to weather conditions and muddy pitches:
  • “The firm bit of the pitch was the wings because it rains... you put your best, most technical players where the pitch is firmest.” — Jonathan Wilson (15:14)
• Lack of Shared Symbols: Unlike Wales or France, England struggles to embrace “underdog” or nationalist symbols due to the legacy of empire and power.
  • “England isn't allowed these symbols of Englishness... because we're just too damn powerful and oppressive historically.” — David Baddiel (16:48)
• Class and Amateurism: The long-standing split between the professional and amateur ideals in English football helps explain both the reluctance to overtly strive for victory and our unique relationship with sporting disappointment.
  • “All the graft, all the technique, all the work involved in winning, well, it's a bit ungentlemanly.” — David Baddiel (21:36)
  • “It's an amateur sports club, the FA, and it still feels like that now.” — Football Analyst (22:26)
• Absurdity of the “Hurting” Narrative: Even in medicine, England’s amateur history runs deep, as in 1970 when team doctor Neil Phillips wasn’t paid and had to buy supplies himself.
  • “We didn't have anything. And the first day I had to go into Whitchurch to a local chemist and virtually bought up his chemist's shop.” — Neil Phillips (23:34)

7. Is Winning Really the Goal? The English Relationship with Success and Loss

• The Ambivalence of Victory: Guests debate whether England truly wants to win, or if the perpetual quest and its attendant drama are more central to national identity than actual success.
  • “I don't believe the English when they say that we actually want to win, because... the drama of trying to win is the entire spectacle.” — Football Analyst (24:10)
• Football as Emotional History: Personal stories reveal how football milestones weave into fans’ lives—moments become milestones of joy, pain, and identity.
  • “England's footballing history has become a way of tracking your own emotional history.” — David Baddiel (24:31)

8. The Emotional Spell of “Is It Coming Home?”

• Chants as Hope Made Audible: Baddiel revisits the famous Three Lions lyric, noting that for most fans, chanting "it's coming home" feels akin to casting a spell—irrational hope over logic.
  • “Because that's what football chants are, spells designed to make the team destiny come true, hope made audible.” — David Baddiel (26:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The Germans learn more from defeat than the English learn from success.” — Jean Williams (28:36)
• “To call something or someone amateur is usually an insult.” — David Baddiel (21:32)
• “What the hell are you gonna do if you catch it? ... I just don't know what would happen. I feel like everyone would just burst.” — Nick Hancock (19:37)
• “It's great to hunt the snot, but what the hell are you gonna do if you catch it?” — Nick Hancock (19:37)
• “If we did win, we'd miss it. We'd miss the story.” — David Baddiel (24:01)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:52 – England’s national anthem and the awkwardness of expressing Englishness.
• 03:05–05:40 – Jean Williams on women in football history and the Lionesses' cultural impact.
• 06:11–07:17 – Maisie Adams on shifting the fandom narrative post-Lionesses’ victory.
• 09:44–10:02 – David Goldblatt on the appointment of Tuchel and the managerial shift.
• 11:10–11:42 – Danny Finkelstein on statistics and tournament expectations.
• 13:39–14:25 – Recounting painful "what if" moments and their emotional legacy.
• 15:14–15:43 – Jonathan Wilson connects playing style to geography/climate.
• 16:30–17:14 – Ellis James and Nick Hancock on Wales, symbols, and Englishness.
• 21:11–22:26 – English amateurism and its legacy.
• 23:34–23:49 – Stories illustrating amateur expectations (1970, Neil Phillips anecdote).
• 24:10–24:31 – The drama of striving versus actually winning.
• 26:28 – "Is it coming home?" as modern-day spellcasting.
• 28:36 – What it really means to be English, French, and to measure national identity.

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Conclusion

The episode wittily and thoughtfully unpacks why English football heartbreak has become a core part of what it means to be English—and asks whether triumph would erase or only confuse that identity further. Football, for England, is both mask and mirror: a stage for ancient insecurities, irrepressible hope, muddled pride, and devotion to the ever-evolving national story.

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Transcript

[David Baddiel]

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[Match Commentator]

Happy and Glorious, Long to reign over

[David Baddiel]

us we began this series talk about national anthems and how England doesn't really have, like other countries, a song of liberation. Which means that singing our one lustily and unironically can feel awkward, at least for some. Although I'm giving it a good old crack here before the England vs Uruguay friendly earlier this year. This whole series to some extent has been about the struggle to own Englishness, when Englishness historically has been about power. But here's the thing. Not for everyone.

[Narrator/Host]

101 years ago, the FA enacted its ban on women's football. Almost half a century it took for that ban to be lifted. This win is for the trailblazers over the decades and for those little girls and boys who have watched on in awe this summer at the skill, the excellence, the panache, the the resilience of these lionesses and have thought, I want that to be me one day.

[David Baddiel]

I'm David Baddiel and for the history podcast, this is 60 Years of Hurt. Episode 6 England vs Hope we have

[Jean Williams]

images of women playing football from 1869 onwards, and indeed there are folk games before that married versus single women.

[David Baddiel]

Football historian Jean Williams, who normally won

[Jean Williams]

that, I don't know the outcome of

[David Baddiel]

it, but surely it's a single women. Well, you've got to be less tired.

[Jean Williams]

Well, yeah. And when men have to go to the front in 1917, when conscription comes in, women go into the munitions factories and for the first time ever, they have work outside the home and more money than they've ever had. And they've also got mates. So they start to have a kick around at tea break and then play games. So, for instance, a team called Dick Kerr's Ladies rent Preston North End Ground for a game in 1917 on Boxing Day and draw a crowd of 10,000 people.

[David Baddiel]

So then it burgeons, is that right? It becomes very popular.

[Jean Williams]

It becomes very popular. Some interpretations are that women's football was going to become bigger than men's football. That was never the case.

[David Baddiel]

Nonetheless, it is still banned by the fa, or at least they push it to the margins.

[Jean Williams]

So the ban is 1921. Football is unsuitable for women.

[David Baddiel]

Women's football is not banned as an entity. Women are not allowed to play on FA licensed pitches. That's correct. Did any women try and create their own pitches elsewhere?

[Jean Williams]

What they tried to do was an exhibition match shortly after the ban where 44 doctors attended and the doctors gave the opinion that football was no more exhausting than a heavy day's was for most women.

[David Baddiel]

It's the most 1920s thing I've ever heard. So the ban is lifted in 1969, is that correct?

[Jean Williams]

Yes, lifted in 69, formally lifted on FA affiliated grounds in January 1970.

[David Baddiel]

And what this gives the lionesses more straightforwardly than the men's team is that elusive English underdog story. I think the triumph of the Lionesses in 2022. One reason why watching it, it was so inspiring, is that obviously it was over Germany, but this history that we're talking about, it means it was also over this long, incredible intractability of the patriarchal male football establishment, which kind of makes it so. CHEERING so easier to own in some way. Because the triumph emotionally of the lionesses, it's also a gender triumph. It's a triumph for women as much as a triumph for England.

[Jean Williams]

Yeah, I think you've articulated that perfectly. I was just nodding. Cause I was agreeing with you.

[David Baddiel]

I was worried I was out of my lane because I'm not a woman.

[Match Commentator]

No more years of no more need for dreaming.

[Maisie Adams]

The Euros win was a huge, huge shift.

[David Baddiel]

Comedian and football fan Maisie Adams.

[Maisie Adams]

This is a cultural moment, but it was extra special when I started seeing women in that space getting caught up in the emotion of it and all of the joys, the highs and lows that football gives you emotionally as a fan.

[Narrator/Host]

The narrative of what it is to be an England fan has just been rewritten.

[Maisie Adams]

I thought I was gonna go crazy and scream and cheer and I burst into tears. That is what happened. I burst into tears. It was a moment because I knew from then on it would be different.

[David Baddiel]

One thing, though, about the joy and tears and breakthrough of an underdog victory is that from that point on, you're not an underdog anymore.

[Maisie Adams]

There wasn't this, like, huge expectation like when we went into that 20, 22 Euros, but as the girls progressed higher and higher through the ran, you could feel it simmering and then boiling over. And actually it culminated in this sort of underdog story and we won it. And then we've got all these fans since then who have only known victory, and it's a little bit like, oh, God, we're gonna end up like those, the men's fans, where we just go to every tournament, go, go on. You should win it. Of course, the difference being we've actually got a record to back it up. Whereas the blokes are still going off one win in 66.

[David Baddiel]

And yes, back in Y chromosome land, the 60 years continue. England go out in World Cup 2022 in a quarter final to France after more penalty anguish, although this time not in a shootout. If ever England needed Harry Kane, it's now.

[Match Commentator]

This needs the nerve of the coolest man on the field. Oh, he's put it over the bar.

[David Baddiel]

And we progressed far in Euro 2024, but not playing well. There is a sense that after all Gareth Southgate's achievements, the old sores of expectation and disappointment are still rubbing against each other.

There was a brief moment in those group stages when football was so appalling and people were so low and, you know, throwing the pint cups at Gareth and everything.

Like that writer of Dear England, the play and TV drama about the Southgate years, James Graham.

I actually thought the love loss towards Southgate potentially made my project look incredibly naive. And have I wasted my life on something that actually isn't real? But there was just that brief moment when I could feel the country losing love of the sport again and the team and the players.

But at the end of the day, I mean, you know, they got to the final, right?

Yeah. And I actually wondered, what about those lessons that I thought we had learned in the. In the early tournaments about having a bit of patience, understanding that the machine sometimes takes a while to crank up and find its flow rather than so quickly turning against them and the negativity and the pressure that we place on them. Well, I'm glad we kept faith and got to second euros final in a row which has never happened in our history.

But in the final we are outclassed by Spain and Gareth's caution. Cole Palmer has been amazing when he's come on in previous rounds, so why not start with him? Tells again there is no more time.

[Match Commentator]

Spain have won it. England are beaten. No happy ending for Gareth Southgate.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

He probably just isn't a high level manager. Sports writer Barney Personality, character, ambassadorial qualities, a list brilliant. I think he just didn't have that highly experienced, highly tuned in game intelligence and it is because of what we know about him, because of Englishness, because of England. It becomes an emotional thing and it starts to haunt those ghosts you see. Maybe the fear is a fear of not trusting his instincts, of like actually we could go and just seize this.

[David Baddiel]

An undisputably high level manager is what England have now gone for.

[David Goldblatt]

I think Tuchel is an absolutely inspired decision to follow him.

[David Baddiel]

Football historian David Goldblatt, because I think

[David Goldblatt]

he's got all the chops that Southgate didn't have in terms of, you know, ruthless super elite international football management.

[David Baddiel]

Lets hope so. And his squad does of course include a new talisman. And in this series I've talked about two types of Englishness, the maverick and the managerial. Always at odds with each other. But maybe Harry Kane somehow merges both, even though earlier we did have him missing a penalty. Can we have something else?

[Match Commentator]

Harry Kane with a downward header. England have got a third goal.

[David Baddiel]

Harry Kane, in terms of like a machine of success, but also a solid, decent, kind, noble, clever. Does he shine brightly in like a firework in the way that Gazza did?

[Phil Wang]

No.

[David Baddiel]

But this. Why can't dependable be sort of sexy as well?

But just before we start the old English engine of hope by turning the key of Cain, I think it's worth asking, what have we Learned? Is the 60 years even a real thing? Not to sound too much like friends late, lamented Chandler Bing, but should we even be hurting?

[Danny Finkelstein]

So first of all, obviously your ability to win international tournaments depends on the size of your country, or at least the size of the footballing part of your country.

[David Baddiel]

Writer and politician, but also football facts analyst Danny Finkelstein answering a key question for this series, does the data support the grievance?

[Danny Finkelstein]

What are our chances when we reach the finals of any tournament, they usually end up being somewhere between 5 and 10%. Well, if you think about that, that means if your chance was 10% every time, you would expect to win only one in every 10 tournaments. 40 years. It's not that surprising, therefore, that in our lifetimes we've only won the one tournament.

[David Baddiel]

Now, statistically you're saying, no, we weren't going to win that many.

[Danny Finkelstein]

Anyway, if you're roughly the 8th best country in the world, you'd expect you'd often get knocked out in a quarter final.

[David Baddiel]

So there you have it. England are basically a quarter final team and really we should be thinking that anything else is gravy, that's that sorted. But no, as I think we've said before, science and data wilt in the face of story. And the story says we are England, we deserve more. Which means one thing we do a lot is what if I was there in South Africa in 2010, for example, when this happened.

[Match Commentator]

Back break for lamp. It's another goal is it hasn't crossed the line. It had to cross the line, surely. My goodness. To the crossbar. I thought that was over the goal

[David Baddiel]

line and it was a goal. It was a goal. Everyone in the ground could see that. But it wasn't given by a Uruguayan linesman. Maybe because he was secretly paying us back for the clearly wrong decision of a Russian linesman 44 years earlier. Anyway, I often find myself thinking that had that goal been given, which would have made the score 22 against Germany, everything could have been different for England in that tournament, for the golden generation, etc. Etc. I am not alone in this English football version of quantum physics, many worlds theory, because English football has a lot of these worlds what ifs.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

Campbell's at the far post in it goes from Anderton.

[Match Commentator]

Oh, he's got in a goal. No, he's disallowed it. Right for that. A brilliant save. It's headed forward. It was headed off the line. It was headed brilliantly off the line. Disguise. I don't believe it. Just couldn't get the left to it when the goal was yawning at his mercy.

[David Baddiel]

How much do you occasionally find yourself? I mean, maybe you don't at all, but daydreaming about what might have been. Like for example, I occasionally find myself still thinking about Gaza's miss in extra time in Euro 96.

[David Seaman]

When you just started that sentence then that's the first image that came into my mind.

[David Baddiel]

England goalie in €96, David Seaman. By the way, worth mentioning, this was one of very few tournaments where in extra time, the rule was golden goal. Basically, first goal wins, which makes Gazza's miss extra painful.

[David Seaman]

Jazza hesitated that little split second and then the ball's past him.

[David Baddiel]

But do you think. I mean, I think occasionally, not like every day, but every so often it comes to me, as it were, in dreams or whatever.

[David Seaman]

Like, yeah, every England game, I think about

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[David Baddiel]

That sense of if only feels very Central to the 60 years, but this series has taught me that there are other elements at the heart of what Englishness in football might be.

[Jonathan Wilson]

An English way of playing was get the ball, ping it wide to the winger. Partly this is an issue of climate, that the firm bit of the pitch was the wings because it rains.

[David Baddiel]

Sports writer Jonathan Wilson.

[Jonathan Wilson]

So by the middle of a winter, the centre of a pitch is muddy. You can't have a little skillful number 10.

[David Baddiel]

I love that bit of specificity, Jonathan, but I'd never thought about that. But yes, you're absolutely right.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Yeah. Argentina is hot and Dr. Therefore you can have a central creator. England. You put your best, most technical players where the pitch is firmest.

[David Baddiel]

This is an amazing point. If you want to know about football and national identity, how the game that we play might be related to the nation we are think first about grass and how much it rains or think about the language and not just English.

[Ellis James]

So when we qualified for year of 2016, the players all said Dios to the camera and they all wore T shirts, said Dior. Dioech is Welsh.

[David Baddiel]

Thank you.

Welsh comedian and presenter Ellis James.

[Ellis James]

That's a very modern thing.

[David Baddiel]

Very modern thing. And it's a very ancient thing. Yeah, that's what's moving about it.

[Nick Hancock]

Yeah.

[David Baddiel]

Because what you're doing there, what is happening is that it's the re finding of an organic, if you like, tradition of Welshness that's been crushed by the English.

[Ellis James]

Well, this is why Garth Bale is so crucial. Garth Bale wouldn't grow up speaking Welsh. If he says Diog at the end of interviews, that's a positive.

[David Baddiel]

It's still quite unimaginable for England because no one's going to say, I think the players. I think Harry Kane should Speak Old

[Danny Finkelstein]

Norse in this interview.

[David Baddiel]

Or maybe that's a bit Norwegian, so just Chaucerian English. No one's going to say, yeah, we come back again and again to this problem of power, to this idea that England isn't allowed. These symbols of Englishness, like Wales and Scotland or Argentina or France are allowed theirs because we're just too damn powerful and oppressive historically. Although there are different ways to think about that too.

[Nick Hancock]

There's an interesting dichotomy there, which is, yes, you'd say England fans come or Englishness comes from a position of power. You know, all of your proms and banging of the drums and flags and all that stuff.

[David Baddiel]

Comedian and podcaster Nick Hancock.

[Nick Hancock]

But actually there's an instinctive thing which I find quite often with English people where they want that to be true, but they want to downplay it. So they often will say, and this tiny country ruled the world. And okay, yes, geographically and in terms of size, it is tiny because that somehow makes it better. It's an underdog story, if you like.

[David Baddiel]

Again, the idea that what we are in search of is an underdog story. And one place to look for that might be the players themselves, who are just. How can I put this?

[Nick Hancock]

We're just normal men.

[Maisie Adams]

What do you mean, normal men?

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[David Baddiel]

Thank you. Hacker the Dog. Yes, they are themselves as people coming from any position of power. Football is still a game where very ordinary working class men can achieve their dreams.

[Stuart Pearce]

I used to work in Wembley. I was brought up and done my

[David Baddiel]

apprenticeship in Brent Stuart Pierce.

[Stuart Pearce]

I know it very well. So I went to Willesden College. They release as electrician and it meant too much to me to lose my place playing for my country.

[David Seaman]

The feeling that I had, David, going out, my first ever game in a World cup in 98, that feeling, I got total body goosebumps. You're dreaming about playing for England and playing for England in the World cup. And I was there, I was doing it, you know, and I was. I'm a lad from Rotherham, you know, we didn't grow up much.

[David Baddiel]

What was the score? We won two, Nils, you want to know?

[David Seaman]

Clean sheets.

[David Baddiel]

You played for England at a very high level and you did very well, but you didn't win anything. I'm gonna say it out loud.

[David Seaman]

Yeah. And that's one of my regrets is not winning anything with England because of like, oh, my God, how good must that feel? Because I've, you know, with Arsenal and I know what that feels like. But like to do it with England, it's just going to be incredible.

[David Baddiel]

Plus, the part is going to be amazing. Yes, the party will be amazing, but what about the after party? Will we, if the years of hurt ended, even know how to be English anymore?

[Nick Hancock]

And there's also an absolutely baffling thing, which is, you know, it's. It's great to hunt the snot, but what the hell are you gonna do if you catch it? You know? Luckily, that's such a distant idea that I just don't know what would happen. I feel like everyone would just burst.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

How would we cope with this? And I think that's one of the reasons there was such an early backlash to Gareth Southgate in that tournament. We're winning.

[Neil Phillips]

Wrong.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

It's like, oh, God, they could actually win this. And it doesn't feel. I don't feel good. Why don't I feel good? Why don't I feel triumphant? Why is this not an expression of some ultimate form of Englishness? Because it's not. It's messy, it's scraggy. I don't like it. It's not exhilarating. And I think there was a genuine. A real kind of, I'm on the edge of something here and I don't like it. Don't make me go on stage, Daddy, I'm gonna cry feeling.

[David Baddiel]

But I also think that losing is still devastating, even if you can't cope with winning.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

Yeah, but the idea that winning can also be devastating is, I think, something very English, or it's not vocalized, but I think it would be strange and confusing for people.

[David Baddiel]

It seems to me that, you know, grace in losing, which Southgate was very good at, fulfilled certain people's fantasies of Englishness. We're heading towards the heart of the grey English sun here, where a quantum reaction that doesn't quite make sense is going on where we desperately want to win, but are perhaps embarrassment guides.

So much of our culture embarrassed at

the idea of winning, embarrassed to desire something so much. Which is maybe why so much of the story we've been telling has been about trying to win. Not too hard.

[Nick Hancock]

Harold Abrahams in the film Cherries of Fire, but also in real life, in that the Marsh of Keys is cross with him and doesn't want him to go to the Olympics because he has a trainer. And of course, fault was always meant to be amateur, as they say. And Abraham says, you expect me to win with the effortless ease of angels. Okay? Which is a very English thing.

[David Baddiel]

To call something or someone amateur is usually an insult.

[Nick Hancock]

Amateurs.

[David Baddiel]

Ian Brown of the Stone Roses reminding us of that there. But it's worth remembering that the F act run by gentlemen, was established as an amateur association and considered amateurism an ideal which might create a sense that all the graft, all the technique, all the work involved in winning, well, it's a bit ungentlemanly, if you wanted to

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

go through why England? Why failure has become such an important part of the sort of English football imagination. It goes back to that initial split. We had two bodies initially, the Football

[David Baddiel]

association and the Football League.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

And the Football League. The Football League is professionalism. It's like this is a game where we can. We can actually have a business here. We can pay these working class men to play. The Football association is the other half of that. It's the governing body of the game. But the League split away from them because they wanted to get rid of amateurism. They're not an extension of some national PE project, which the FA essentially was. And I think you're right, I haven't really thought about it along those class terms before, but it's definitely true. The. The giving out of caps, the Blazered committee rooms. It is an amateur sports club, the fa, and it still feels like that now.

[David Baddiel]

And if you want a prime example of how this ties in with the story we're telling here, the 60 Years of Hurt actually begins in 1970, which of course technically makes it 56 years of hurt, actually. That's if we miss out the 1968 European Championship, where we went out in the semis to Yugoslavia after Alan Mullery became the first England player to be sent off. Oh, God.

[Match Commentator]

Germany are winning the match. 3, 2. And there is the final whistle.

[David Baddiel]

Anyway, yes, thank you. 1970, where England went out in a quarter final after their goalkeeper, the best in the world, Gordon Banks, was laid low with a stomach upset. The team doctor tending to him was called Neil Phillips. And here's the thing about Neil Phillips. Amazingly though, he was never paid a penny and he had to use up all his holidays.

[Neil Phillips]

The first question I asked at Lilleshall was, where's the medical bag? We didn't have one. We didn't have anything. And the first day I had to go into Whitchurch to a local chemist and virtually bought up his chemist's shop.

[David Baddiel]

There, in a nutshell, is the amateur expectation that England should win with the effortless ease of angels, because angels never get sick. This helps to explain perhaps, why we find it so hard to win. But maybe the problem is also, if we did win, we'd miss it. We'd miss the story.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

I don't believe the English when they say that we actually want to win, because you then say, well, where's the evidence of actually trying to win in the way that, for example, Spain has tried to win and Germany has. English people aren't stupid. We know how to build airplanes. We could win at football. But you've got to win in the right way, and it has to be in a way. The drama of trying to win is the entire spectacle.

[David Baddiel]

And one thing England has given us over the course of the 60 years is a lot of drama. England's footballing history has become a way of tracking your own emotional history.

[Nick Hancock]

Lisbon, 2004.

[Stuart Pearce]

I was with my girlfriend at the

[Nick Hancock]

time and we all went back after that game and I thought, I'm going to ask her to marry me. And she said yes.

[Jean Williams]

Smiling faces and people hugging each other. It's absolutely brilliant.

[David Baddiel]

Gets to us all, doesn't it? It really does get to us all.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

I remember cycling over Blackheath after England had beaten Cameroon. Every single car that drove past me beeping their horn, sort of offering you beer bottles out of the window, it was. I'd never known anything like it.

[David Baddiel]

David Platt's goal against Belgium, an extra time. I virtually blacked out with joy when that goal went in.

[Maisie Adams]

I mean, how great is this to say winning the Euros the first time?

[David Baddiel]

When England lost to Italy in the final of the Euros, it just felt like a nation was grieving.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

I thought it was all over until that Drew Bellingham overhead kick, that scissor kick. Everything changed in that split second. Football is about movements and not necessarily about trophies.

[David Baddiel]

The thing I get asked most often in my life by passers by and taxi drivers, especially as we approach major football tournaments, is, is it coming home, Dave? Which is a misunderstanding of what the lyrics of Three Lions are about. But who cares? It means, are we going to win the World cup or even the Euros ever again? And it's interesting because, as various people have said in this series, there's a sense that England being able to do that is somehow magical, that it should happen. And so I suppose there's an idea that it happening could be brought about by a mantra, a spell by the words. And I've noticed sometimes that when the crowd thinks England might win, that's when they start singing that urgently, over and over again. Because that's what football chants are, spells designed to make the team destiny come true, hope made audible. So the answer to the question, is it coming home?

[Danny Finkelstein]

Well, when I started doing statistics, I noticed People would frequently say to me, give me ridiculous probabilities of England winning tournaments. 60%, 40%. And you think that's obviously absurd. What about all the other teams?

[David Baddiel]

I think it is primarily an emotional response, not a scientific one. Is that you say to me, what's the chances of England winning the World Cup? I would think I was being sensible in saying, oh, 30%, but that's obviously far too high.

Right?

[Danny Finkelstein]

Yes, it's very, very high.

[David Baddiel]

Thanks, Danny, for the cold, harsh reality of data, but since I'd prefer to end on an up note, this is

[David Goldblatt]

an extraordinary England football team and I'm just going to put my. I actually have had some. I've had my usual World cup bet. I've got it right twice, the last two. And I've had 10 bucks on England.

[Match Commentator]

England might count me the hand of the free. Such miserable weather.

[David Baddiel]

Thank you, David Goldblatt and everyone else in this city for trying to define what football says about Englishness.

[Football Analyst/Commentator]

Football does a good job of summarising that because it's a mask, you know, it's a dance and song where you get to dress up, you get to emote. Been rehearsing this for 140 years. It's exactly the same. The emotions, the symbols, the flags, the weirdness.

[Maisie Adams]

That's what football is. That's what it can represent to our Englishness. But it's always got to evolve.

[Jonathan Wilson]

So the England national team, it is the most visible representation of, quote, unquote, England. What else could represent England more?

[Jean Williams]

The Germans learn more from defeat than the English learn from success.

[Nick Hancock]

Early 2000, they did a survey of primary school children across Europe and they collated the results. The question was, what represents your country and the French? The three most popular answers were, all French people are born free. All French people are born equal. All French people are my brothers or sisters.

[David Baddiel]

Okay?

[Nick Hancock]

And the three most popular answers from England were, we won the World cup in 1966, two, Manchester United play in England, and three, it's not too hot and it's not too cold.

[David Baddiel]

This was 60 years of hurt. It was written and presented by me, David Badill. Produced by Rich Power and David Badil. Assistant producer was Isaac Fisher. The Archive producer was Samira Chowdhury. Sound design was by David Crackles and Auntie Fell. Production manager was Debbie Waddell. Production coordinator, Galen Davis Connolly. The creative director was James Cook. The commissioners for Radio 4 were Dan Clark and Tracy Williams. In association with Left Bank Pictures, You can listen to all episodes of 60 Years of Hurt first on BBC Sounds if you want to be notified as soon as a new episode drops, make sure you're subscribed to the History podcast on BBC Sounds and have push notifications turned on.

[Phil Wang]

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