What if things were… better? In the past fortnight alone, the malign rule of a 14-year-long Conservative government has come to an end – taking with it the regressive Rwanda plan and a ban on onshore wind licences – while the English football team entered the final stages of the European Championships. There is a sense of optimism to life in the United Kingdom, where things are not good, but might (might) be improving. Hundreds of thousands of English people will experience a rare moment of national pride this weekend when England competes against Spain in the Euros, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer hinted at a bank holiday should we win, which is not the kind of legislature that will protect the country against the far right or cost-of-living crisis, but… it would be nice?
Patriotism, of course, looks different on different groups of people. Some football fans, for example, deploy jumbo-sized red flares in unholy ways – which is perhaps the most authentic expression of “blokecore” to have surfaced during the 2020 Euros – while others shop the #blokecore hashtag on Depop. (This might be the difference between being the kind of person who understands the offside rule and being the kind of person who does not.) A series of identifiable themes has emerged in the clothing choices of English spectators across the 2024 Euros, too, which has become as much a reason to engage in fashion as Wimbledon. There are the aspirant WAGs in their clean-girl athleisure, home counties “lads” and their baby tee girlfriends, and then there are fashion people who typically do not care about football but might happen to own Martine Rose’s or Coperni’s or Conner Ives’s jerseys.
Scroll down below for a piece-by-piece breakdown of those archetypes. (Just so you know who to look out for – or who to avoid – come Sunday’s final.)
The Press Ticket-Holder
