The Tournament Where England Supporters Felt Something New

I watched England's final group game, against Belgium, from a Walkabout in Reading. Having seen a video of fans storming a branch of Sports Direct after a match the week before, it seemed like the perfect spot to get a measure of England support at its most delirious and impulsive, at a particularly feverish moment in England's World Cup dream.

Having seen off Tunisia with a last-minute thriller, before thrashing Panama 6-1 and watching Germany bow out in the group stages the night before, the belief was slowly dawning that this could be a tournament of strange miracles – a chaos theory that figured England might ride a wave of confusion and upset to the final.

At gone 6PM, the temperature was still 25º outside, and inside the bar (full of hundreds of jostling bodies) the air was thick. The DJ, obscured by a cocoon of heavy-duty cling film, presumably to protect him from flying drinks, methodically worked through tunes from Ant and Dec's "We're On the Ball" to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", each enjoying a bigger response than the last. The crowd – all under 30, draining massive two-pint plastic cups of lager, almost entirely decked out in England's new pre-match training top – were fizzing. Then "Three Lions" – the new national anthem – was dropped, and the place erupted.

Until this tournament, the only thing with a worse reputation than England's national football team was its fans. Dogged by hooliganism as recently as the 2016 incidents in Marseille, they've been pursued by a cloud of either mindless violence or entitled despondency, with most international games soundtracked by jeers, whistles and the hollow echo of the England Band parping "Rule Britannia" to the un-listening skies. While crowd montages would typically feature entire Brazilian families in Carnival get-up, or French and Japanese fans making love-hearts with their hands, the best England could normally offer were a few sunburnt faces or a bloke dressed up as a knight, all of them burying their heads in their hands.

Which is why, in the tournament that came after Euro 2016 – inarguably England's lowest ebb – it makes perfect sense that "it's coming home" became a meme. We are so self-aware about our suffering now, our historical misadventures clearly so ridiculous, that going into this World Cup we'd stopped assuming we deserved anything. The build-up mantras this time were unique: "low expectations", "they're an inexperienced squad", "one hurdle at a time". English pride, in effect, needed to eat itself before we could enjoy a major tournament again. If it's the hope that kills you, then first we needed to kill hope.

In the space that was left, an unlikely team came through, as did a version of supporting England that felt different. One that didn't knot your stomach and leave you cursing the soil. All through our spell in Russia, people smiled when they talked about the team; the public genuinely likes them, and the players seem to genuinely like each other. The hangover of the golden generation had at last worn off, and England fans had been given a shot at renewal.

Cambridge University ran an experiment during the tournament asking fans from across the world to list three words which best describe their national team. "Young", "exciting", "hopeful", "promising" and "pacy" all featured among the words picked by most England fans (alongside "coming" and "home", of course). I'd struggle to think of the last time those words were even in our footballing vocabulary.

Southgate touched on the implications of this current squad in an interview with ITV, expressing his conviction that they have a chance to achieve something bigger than themselves. "We're a team, with our diversity and our youth, that represent modern England," he said. "In England, we've spent a bit of time being a bit lost as to what our modern identity is, and as a team we represent that."

Maybe this was a bit of a stretch. Martin O'Neill clearly thought as much. When viewers were returned to the studio following the interview, the Republic of Ireland manager responded that perhaps Southgate had a little too much downtime on his hands; that he was "reading too many novels".

Plenty of writers have jumped on these comments, of course, and tried to make this World Cup about patriotism, as though this England team performing as well as they did means the St George's cross has been rehabilitated and Brexit won't happen. Which is a shame, because patriotism is such a pointless waste of celebration – squandering all the glory on something as meaningless as nationalism. It's like when somebody thanks God for something in an acceptance speech instead of enjoying the glory for themselves. It distracts us from what's really going on.

Part of me can't help but agree with Southgate. There is a soft power to watching a young and nearly-50-percent non-white England squad reach the semi-finals of a World Cup, given the current state of the nation. Not because it unites us under a banner of Englishness – but because it makes Englishness itself look old and tired. The generational cleave in our society is pronounced at the moment, and the inevitabilities of Old England – people voting Tory and losing on penalties – are running out of steam. Just like last year's election, if we didn't quite manage victory this time, we at least have reason to believe something better might be round the corner.

The Belgium game, as it goes, gave us little to be excited about, but it did nothing to dent the mood in Reading. On the final whistle, the pubs emptied into the streets, which were lined with police anticipating a repeat of the previous week's antics. The songs picked up where they left off before the game, backgrounded by the drumming of palms slammed against bins. Any Guardian columnist with a mind to write about progressively-minded young England supporters would have been disappointed. Chants ranged from "Ten German Bombers" to a topical number celebrating England, with its "tits, fanny and Brexit".

As the numbers dispersed, a core group of 20 led a procession through the streets, accompanied by police, filming themselves as they went. It was balmy, the sunlight still trickling away, so everyone was happy in shorts; flags tied around them like capes, white socks pulled up to their knees and bumbags slung over shoulders. Everyone wanted a photo, and kids pounded the windows of McDonald's as we passed with the camera. You wouldn't have guessed England had just lost.

This World Cup hasn't rewritten what it means to be an England supporter, because that's an impossible proposition to begin with. How can you define, let alone rewrite, the story of a group that varied in demographic and outlook? It's not a magic wand. For every heartwarming story about Muslim teenagers sharing high-fives with drunken fans, there's an LBC caller ready to decry multiracial societies and burst your bubble. Yet, when international football works, in its simplest terms it gives the disparate groups that make up a country something tangible to connect over, which is what England had for a couple of nuclear-hot weeks this summer.

We probably shouldn't read too much into it, lest the hope returns to kill us again, but as an England supporter it has been nice to feel something new.

@a_n_g_u_s / orlandogili.com

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