Here we go, the lads. The England lads. The ruddy England lads. The lads. The boys. Our boys. Our lads. Our brave and glorious lads. Chris Smalling? Lad. Jonjo Shelvey? Chap. Joe Hart? Pally mate. Lad chap. Chap lad. Boy. Here they are in their new suits, from M&S, fresh to death for the inevitable anticlimactic Euro 2016 exit:
(All photos England/M&S)
From left to right: Gary Cahill (substitute Geography teacher who doesn't know where you are in the syllabus but is not here to take your shit, so just tell me who threw the chalk boys and you can all go an enjoy your lunch hour); Adam Lallana (sixth former who overdressed for his first day doing work experience at a garage); Ryan Bertrand (lad your girlfriend met in a nightclub and you are really not happy about them going to a wedding with 'just as friends'); Chris Smalling (estate agent who can't work keys); Joe Hart (over-muscular receptionist at a fancy hotel); Kyle Walker (baffled head boy); Harry Kane (one of the Kray Twins' mates who has a whole section in his Wikipedia entry about his scientifically impossible low IQ); Ross Barkley (serial Take Me Out afterparty shagger); Dele Alli (unknown British actor being applauded at the BAFTAs); Phil Jones (American Psycho fan who took it all a bit far); Keiran Gibbs (quiet boy up in the docks to explain why all his friends went missing after that day at the abandoned quarry); Jonjo Shelvey (Chicken Cottage bouncer). Our lads, our glorious lads. Take us to glory, O lads. Take us to the heights of a second round exit at Euro 2016 at the hands of France, and come home on the plane in your glorious M&S suits, and march out in silence to a press pack of hundreds, in sunglasses, with sad little owl Roy Hodgson leading you out, our lads.
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Here's a closer look, at Kyle Walker and Joe Hart and Chris Smalling, looking for all the world like they're fronting a Daily Mail story about how men can still be friends with their ex even when they're in a new relationship:
Dele Alli has somehow managed to infiltrate the hardest gang at school and, as an undercover prefect, is gearing up to tell the headmaster just how many condoms full of paint Harry Kane is going to set off at the prom.
Jonjo Shelvey and Phil Jones – the two hardest doormen at Hedonism in Rotherham – are happy to go on the record to tell the police they saw Kieran Gibbs spiking girls' drinks even though he wasn't actually in the country at the time of the attack.
Gary Cahill is very sorry to the police for any trouble his young sons started with them fireworks and mark my words, officer, they will be dealt with to the full extent of my belt once I get the cunts inside.
These are our boys, our lads, our suit pals, our smart-end-of-the-smart-casual spectrum boy-lads, our chaps, the men who will inspire a thousand car wing mirror St George's flag impulse purchases from the Esso garage by Tesco, the men who will prop up with '3 crates for £25' summer beer-buying industry, the men whose names we will have emblazoned on the back of our £65 Nike home shirts, burning in nylon in the heat of the summer sun. We will turn pink in pub beer gardens for our boys. We will cry their names into the heat of the dusky night. These are the men who will joylessly exit our most hopeful tournament in a decade on penalties after an unsatisfying 0-0 draw. The names we will write into history: Walker. Cahill. Lallana. Roy Hodgson's brave and loyal boys. Our lions, our roaring lion-hearted boys, in their M&S suits, made up to special dimensions to envelope Phil Jones pink, hairless, insane body. Don't you feel proud to be English, to be alive? Can't you hear the opening strings of Jerusalem playing distant on the wind when you see these photos? Our boys, our brave boys. Support them proudly, loudly. Support them with every fibre and beat of your loyal English heart.
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