Desire, Drive and the Melancholy of English Football

Abstract

In 2021, the men’s English national football team reached their first final at a major international tournament since winning the World Cup in 1966. This success followed their previous achievement of reaching the semi-finals at the 2018 World Cup. True to form, the defeats proved unfalteringly English, with the 2021 final echoing previous tournament defeats, as England lost to Italy on penalties. However, what resonated with the predictability of an English defeat was the accompanying chant, ‘it’s coming home’. A ubiquitous presence throughout the course of both tournaments – while chanted at England football matches, it was also repeated across social media, the press and commercial advertising – the chant originates from the 1996 single, Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home). In what follows, critical attention will be given to examining how the song offers a melancholic outlook. By re-approaching examples of English nostalgia and hubris, this chapter will expose how illustrations of English melancholy offer the potential for promoting collective forms of expression, which, when contextualised alongside England’s lack of footballing success (for the men’s team, at least), can be offset against a melancholic mediation that is cognisant of the centrality of loss – for both the subject and our collective sporting endeavours.