Natasha Chahal

When tickets for Euro 2025 went on sale last year, UEFA made the usual noises about igniting passion, inspiring the next generation and celebrating progress – platitudes that have been repeated in much of the coverage. The game needs more than slogans and anthems, as a series of announcements from clubs last summer made clear. Thornaby FC announced they would be axing their women’s and girls’ teams. (Following protests, the decision was reversed and nine months later Thornaby won the North-East Regional Women’s League.) Reading FC withdrew from the FA Women’s Championship, citing lack of funding. Blackburn Rovers announced that their women players would receive only minimum wage. The Lionesses’ captain, Leah Williamson, who has been with Arsenal since she was nine years old, told the Times she wasn’t ‘earning enough to retire’.

The days leading up to the final were worrisome. If we lost, would everyone lose the plot? If we won, would everyone lose the plot? The BBC shared footage of a bus en route to Bellingham being mobbed in celebration of Jude Bellingham. Keir Starmer hinted at a bank holiday if England won. The Coldstream Guards played ‘Three Lions’ at Buckingham Palace. The king encouraged the players ‘to secure victory before the need for any last minute wonder-goals or another penalties drama’.

Corbin Shaw’s work draws on the history of flag-waving and textiles in football. Now based in East London, he was born and grew up in a South Yorkshire ex-mining town. He began making flags after the death by suicide of his father’s longtime friend and companion on the terraces. The first one was a parody of a Sheffield United banner that instead of ‘we hate Wednesday’ said ‘we should talk about our feelings.’ He’s made versions of the St George’s Cross with slogans like ‘I’m never going to be one of the lads,’ ‘God save the queers’ and ‘Soften up hard lad.’ Shaw collaborated with Women’s Aid during the 2022 World Cup to highlight the rise of domestic abuse during football tournaments.

The star of the England squad, fresh from winning the Champions League with Real Madrid, is 21-year-old Jude Bellingham.

To paraphrase Ed Miliband in 2015, this is not the piece I wanted to write; this team has come back before and will come back again. Maybe it’s glib to compare football to politics but try telling that to the politicians. Keir Starmer has been lending his support to the women’s national team on social media. His style of play, he says, is ‘midfield, controlling operations, strong left foot’, though he admits his teammates might not describe him that way. Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, managed to mangle the cliché about a team leaving ‘everything on the pitch’ or ‘nothing in the dressing room’ and told the England women that they ‘left absolutely nothing out there’, though he went on to say: ‘We are all incredibly proud of you.’ I can only assume he didn’t really mean it but which part is unclear.