Get Stuck In!

How bullshit baffled brains in an English football pub

English football supporter dispenses incorrect advice (scene recreated by Gemini)

The scene was a traditional public house in London’s East End. In this working-class pub, rowdy Cockneys were cheering England’s football team playing against the Netherlands at Wembley Stadium.

There is a kind of magic in an English pub when the national team plays. It is a secular church, a theater of shared anxiety, agony, and brief bursts of pure joy as strangers embrace strangers in celebration.

In England, a dry irony tempers our fanaticism. Call it a resignation born of sixty years of failure since the 1966 World Cup — a national pessimism that insulates the realistic supporter against the inevitability of defeat.

But the benefits of a pub during an important match are undeniable.

Packed into a room smelling of stale tobacco and spilled lager, it offers a camaraderie that you can’t replicate at home. It guarantees a room full of self-proclaimed tactical geniuses, seated at beer-stained tables over sawdust-strewn floorboards.

Warm, yeasty air hung thick under the low ceiling. Pints slopped over the rims of glasses every time England ventured into the Dutch penalty area.

Somebody had already criticized the referee before the kickoff. Another was leaning over the bar, explaining why the manager should have picked a completely different midfield. Nobody agreed with anyone else, but everyone knew better than the professionals.

We often talk about the “wisdom of the crowd” — the idea that a collective group, pooling its insights, will naturally arrive at a smart conclusion. Everyone chips in with an opinion, a bit of strategy, or a critique of the manager’s substitutions. But the crowd is just as easily a source of collective delusion.

At this 2012 encounter between England and the Netherlands, the game was tied 2–2, but the Dutch were dominating play, and the groans were becoming deafening.

Facing the audience was a vociferous blond whose passion far outstripped her understanding of the modern game.

She had reduced football to two universal tactics. If England had possession, “Boot it up the field!” was her mantra.

If England didn’t have possession, it was, “Get stuck in!” Every situation in football required one of those two approaches.

As the game progressed, her frustration increased. She transitioned into an apoplectic rage as her advice to the English team went unheeded.

Whenever England tried to play the ball out from the back to maintain possession and build an attack, her piercing voice shattered the pub:

“Boot it up the field!”

And when England goalie Joe Hart finally took her advice, launching a high punt into the Wembley sky, there was no center forward in place to chase it down.

The towering Dutch center-half, Joris Mathijsen, didn’t have to break a sweat. He simply took two steps backward and effortlessly collected the ball on his chest before laying it off to his own midfielder.

In a fraction of a second, the ball was, to use an American expression, “turned over”. England’s possession was surrendered by an outdated football tactic.

Her tactical vision belonged to an entirely different era, but her advice to Leighton Baines, the Everton and England left-back, outdid even the futility of her “long ball” strategy.

Baines was facing the Dutch star Arjen Robben, then at the top of his form.

Tormented by the speedy winger, the England and Everton left-back was struggling to hold his own.

Our fanatical blonde supporter had the solution. She gesticulated in angry frustration toward the television screen, throwing her hands in the air and shouting:

“Get stuck in! Get stuck in!”

It was the instinctive reaction of an ignorant supporter, a collective urge felt by everyone in the room who wanted to see the Dutchman decked by an aggressive tackle.

And twenty miles west, on the Wembley pitch, oblivious to her shouts but feeling that same desperate pressure, Baines over-committed. He lunged forward, throwing his weight into a reckless attempt to win the ball.

The second Baines shifted his body into the tackle, his balance was gone. Robben dipped his shoulder and dragged the ball inside. As football fans say, the fullback was “sat down”; helpless on the grass, as the winger sped away.

Arjen Robben strikes with his favorite left foot (adapted from a YouTube image)

In the pub, the female supporter froze, her hands still in mid-air. Robben had taken two steps towards the center of the field, transferred the ball to his favorite left foot, and curled a beautiful shot into the top corner.

The winning goal for the Netherlands.

A quiet patron at the end of the counter, who hadn’t uttered a syllable all evening, slowly slid his pint out of the way and leaned over to me with a knowing smile. Watching Robben disappear into a huddle of celebrating teammates, he took a slow sip of his bitter and murmured:

“Bad idea. Never dive in on a player like Robben. Be patient. Keep your eyes glued to the ball and always show him the outside — force him onto his weaker right foot.”

But in the sudden, heavy silence, the blonde football analyst was already recovering. She lowered her arms and placed her hands on her hips.

Taking a sip of her gin and tonic, she shook her head and let out a loud, theatrical sigh.

“See?” she announced to the room. “I told you. What do you expect from an Everton player? The useless bastard didn’t get stuck in quick enough.”

We like to talk about the “wisdom of the crowd” — the idea that a group will pool its insights to find the truth. But watch a match in an East End pub and you’ll quickly find that real wisdom is in short supply.

By not joining the tribal chorus of “Boot it!” and “Get stuck in!”, I had apparently signaled to the quiet patron that I was an observer, not a participant in the collective delusion. In that brief aside, he taught me why English football has historically struggled against world-class talent.

Our old-school ethos relies on blood, thunder, and raw adrenaline. But against an elite winger, aggression without patience is suicide.

Out here on the sidelines, however, nobody cares about containment or angles. The dominant philosophy is much simpler: bullshit baffles brains, and whoever shouts loudest wins the argument.

Thanks for reading my story.

John Wakefield is a retired geologist and former professor, now exploring the continent from the cab of a truck camper named Diogenes. Writing from the sidelines of history, sports, and culture with a heavy dose of dry irony and an eye for detail.

My Portfolio & Travels: linktr.ee/jwakeart