In the past I’ve talked about the connection between performing arts and sport. They both happen in time and space, for starters. Spectators/audience are important, as is the outcome. When they are at their best, it becomes riveting.
I’m old enough to remember the day England won the World Cup in 1966 when we all watched on black and white TVs just a few miles from Wembley. The now-famous commentary that ended it.“Some people are on the pitch! They think it’s all over! It is now.” The national euphoria was off the scale, and the players became national heroes for life, feted everywhere – although only one of them, Sir Geoff Hurst, is alive today.
Last night, England probably played their best game since 1966, certainly on foreign soil.
After going ahead with two goals and then the drama of the ups and downs of penalties at both ends and a red card for an England player, I think most of the watching public would have been watching with their hands in front of their faces and gritted teeth – England has been there many times before and crumbled.
But they didn’t, and as we know, they held on and won the game, moving on to the quarter-finals. Like a good theatre thriller, this match had an intense sense of jeopardy. From moment to moment, you gripped the settee and hoped for the best. Heroes emerge at such times – and sometimes villains. What I took away beyond anything else was the powerful sense of the team. Of playing for each other, for being there and putting your body on the line if necessary. As Shakespeare puts it
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; ….
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.”
It was one of those occasions that seems larger than life, that calls for parallels to be made.
When you have lived through years of disappointment and when the odds seem so stacked against you, how wonderful to hold your head up and come through. Like theatre, these heroes carried our dreams and allowed us to see them come to life.
In that moment, you find out who you truly are and what the people around you mean to you. Whether or not they succeed again, these players can say they fought that fight on this day and came away victorious.
