Dear England: BBC dramatized account of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as manager of the England men’s football team. What can we learn from this?
I’ll be the first to admit that football is not my greatest interest. I wouldn’t describe myself as a ‘sporty’ person and quite frankly the thought of running along a pitch to ‘attempt’ to score a goal makes me cringe.
Yet, there’s no denying that football brings a nation together. For many, football is attributed to physical and mental wellbeing, emotional outlet and belonging as well as the joy and skill of kicking a ball around and getting it into a net down the pitch. Fans often find a shared identity with others and build lasting connections with people they may not have met otherwise.
Football can provide a safe outlet for those who experience intense emotions and teaches valuable skills such as teamwork, communication and resilience. For some of us, football is more than ‘just a game’ to millions of people and with the World Cup happening this year, football fans are out in full force.
(there is a dark side to football too which we are not ignoring but that’s not for today’s post)
Dear England is a dramatized account of Gareth Southgate’s time as manager of the men’s England football team starring Joseph Fiennes and Jodie Whittaker. Adapted by James Graham from his award-winning play, the story tracks Southgate’s mission to rid the men’s football team of emotional despair, psychological trauma, penalty shootout fears and to rebuild trust with a cynical nation. The title of the play comes from an open letter Southgate wrote to England fans in 2021 during the Covid 19 pandemic. Joseph Fiennes also starred in the play. And he is utterly superb. It’s brilliant tv.
In the first episode, it became clear to me that Dear England is about so much more than ‘the beautiful game’. This drama exposes some dark truths about the culture in the game, it challenges stereotypes and sparks important conversations, especially around toxic masculinity and racism. From the beginning, we see Southgate missing a penalty and England losing as a result. He seems surprised to be asked to go for manager when he feels he failed and let his country down. Yet, he didn’t. As someone who doesn’t play the game, it’s hard to imagine the pressure a player must feel in that moment and how devastating it must be to feel you’ve failed everyone. ‘I just wanted to disappear, I knew I was responsible for ending millions of people’s dream.’ How heartbreaking this must have been and what a shadow that must have cast over his life. Always being reminded of it, always having to talk about it, always being the ‘one who missed’. This also played into a false sense of entitlement at England is some how meant to win tournaments and ‘bring it home’. Well the ladies have already done that. And we’re not entitled.
After a conversation with Wayne Rooney, it’s shared with Southgate the main issue with the England team is psychological, not physical – this is where the drama begins. Southgate’s mission to ‘fix’ the England team starts with talking about mental illness and sharing his own experiences with the team. He brings in the support of psychologist Pippa Grange (Jodie Whittaker) to embark on exercises to build the team’s resilience and morale. In the drama, it’s quoted ‘we had a team that didn’t enjoy wearing the England T shirt. Now he’s changed that. He’s changed the whole culture.’ One thing I found unexpectedly emotional, was the final penalties in the 2018 world cup at the end of episode one, when each player goes to the spot and recites their name and their number. It almost had me in tears. It’s so important to understand the place each player has in the history of the team and gives a sense of unity so that no player ‘deals with things alone and suffers in silence.’
As humans we’re often fearful of letting others down, when really, we’re scared to admit we feel we’ve let ourselves down and that can be harder to face. But when we talk about this openly, we often find that others will support us, we just need to ask. Southgate also sparked a conversation in the drama about racism in football. In episode two, he delves into the ‘reality that the players face’ and that some of them feel unsafe on the pitch. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka faced a torrent of abuse after they missed penalties during Euro 2020. Southgate praised his players as ‘massively courageous’ for stepping up after facing that abuse. Abuse that he feels ‘does not represent what we stand for.’ Southgate teaches us that a topic can’t be ignored just because it’s uncomfortable to talk about, we should stand up for what is right.
Episode three also covers an interesting conversation between young Southgate and then prime minister, John Major. Southgate is devastated about missing the penalty, but Major tells him, ‘Maybe it’s just that our purpose is sort of something else, not something we imagined.’ He also says ‘when leadership is sort of thrust upon us, all we can – all we can strive to do – is stand by our values.’ In Southgate’s mind, he failed in front of millions. Later, he became the leader of the England team and changes things completely. In Pippa’s words he ‘resurrected England.’ Perhaps we can learn from this that failure is a first attempt in learning. The courage it takes to fail, is often more than the failure itself. It means you tried. It also suggests that leaders are not always the loudest in the room, sometimes they quietly observe and make decisions. Perhaps Southgate’s calling was to be the leader that England never knew it needed. Pippa states to Southgate later that England needed to ‘learn how to lose. That’s how one day you make it possible to win.’ Whatever our interests, football or not, failure is a part of life and Southgate is a brilliant role model to us all. Dear England is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Would recommend the watch.