Still England

It’s almost midnight and I’m knackered. 

It’s early July and we’ve just got back to Poland, following a visit to England where I’d spent time with family and even been fortunate enough to have a couple of days at Centre Court, Wimbledon. 

We spent the day in the hot London sun. The lingering kind of day you have somewhere when you know you’ve got a flight in the evening. We saunter around Regent’s Park and Marylebone. Sit and read. Have a coffee. Have some food. Have a pint. Followed by the mindless routine of being in an airport, killing time. 

And then we are back home. Shattered. 

But I can’t go to sleep yet. How can I? I can’t miss this. I must power through. 

It’s the World Cup and England are playing Mexico in the Round of 16 in Mexico City. It’ll surely be the spectacle we’ve all been waiting for?

The original kick-off of 2 am Polish time is delayed, so we fill the void by unpacking and ensuring there’s some beer in the fridge getting cold. Because when else will you have the opportunity to drink a beer at 3 am again? I’m no longer young in the truest sense.

Finally, it gets underway. A beer is opened. A middle of the night sandwich consumed. 

It feels good. Slightly mischievous without the menace that the Mexican players are showing England during the game.

The game is thrilling. Invigoratingly tense. Perfect for an all-nighter. England win 3-2 with ten men and I’ve had a thoroughly enjoyable night (morning?). One of the great England performances.

Heading to bed and it’s full daylight outside with people beginning to go out to work, I try and drop off. Fighting the adrenaline from the game I think about England and my relationship with it.

I’m not a massive England football fan. I watch some of the qualifiers and maybe a friendly if there’s really nothing else to do, but I’m what you’d call a tournament supporter, I guess. Yet, here I am, trying to get my first proper bit of sleep in over 24 hours, following a tiring day of travel and pulling an all-nighter to watch the game. 

Of course, the kick-off time wasn’t by choice, but in years gone by I would have just gone to bed. 

Being away from England has changed my relationship with it. For a few hours, watching the match closed the distance between the country I’d just left and the one I now live in.

While living in England my nationality never felt like a defining part of me. In Poland, however, I’m the English guy. It’s an immediate way for a person to understand and describe me. 

Why am I living here? What do I think to Brexit? Fish & chips and bad weather.

English first. Joel second.

Yet, whilst I have to wear my Englishness more front and centre than I’m used to, the distance of not being in England removes the daily frustrations of life. Everything being expensive and still somehow not really working, political scandals and overhearing ridiculous conversations on the street. I’ve become somewhat ignorant to that, living in a foreign land.

However, it does mean I have to now work much harder in a foreign language that I still know little of to create humour, shared references and an ease of attachment. Something that came naturally to me in England. 

Watching England beat Mexico at the Azteca gave me a few hours where I could still be part of something that felt shared with millions of others back home. 

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