STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
July 11th, 2021. A country emerging from a second lockdown during the second wave of the Covid pandemic, and World Cup fever was in the air. Hordes of fans were eager to flock to Wembley Stadium for the big game against Italy, but were factored out by unaffordable ticket prices, and large parts of the stadium sealed off to comply with Covid regulations. Before long, chaos had broken out, with largely ticketless fans stampeding into the arena, and the security becoming overwhelmed, leaving all those who'd come to celebrate the game stuck in the crossfire.
I've never had much of an interest in football, and have always felt uneasy at the tribalism and sense of raw aggression it generates in people, even if it would be better channeled through a medium like this than out on the street. Through an outward veneer, the game still generally appears a lot calmer and less eruptive than the things you see from back in the 1970's and 80's, but occasionally it can flare up again and events like those documented here can occur. I certainly remember those shameful scenes being broadcast, and how they spoiled the happy mood that I did get absorbed in, even if I wasn't following things in general. Here they're explored in more detail.
As I've already mentioned, it was the feeling of something happening that felt largely consigned to the past, something you felt most people had evolved beyond, but you always knew somewhere in the national consciousness was just simmering beneath the surface, and that something like this was sadly going to bring it out. Will an Asian security guard be racially abused, just while doing his job? Sadly, yes. Will three inexperienced younger players get the same thing when they miss on penalty shoot outs? Sadly, yes. It's all encapsulated by the likes of the guy at the end, boasting about how he'll show his kids the picture of him parading about on the top of the bus, like his dad showed him the one of him breaking into the private members area. Two generations of mindless idiocy.
As if to highlight how progress has improved things, things are rounded off with the women's team winning their match. What we focus on here is a resurgence of bygone times, and while this documentary does a decent job of things, there's an overly jubilant feel to the subjects and their actions that feel distasteful. ***
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