Three lions. A shiny trophy called Jules Rimet. The smell of Deep Heat and sweat. Jumpers for goalposts and slices of orange at half-time, isn't it. Thirty years of hurt. No, scratch that, it’s 52 years now. Football looks like it might finally come home, whatever that means.
To the surprise of literally everyone, England haven’t absolutely ballsed up their current campaign in Russia.
Their winning streak has given people a reason to smile as we drown in talk of soft Brexit, hard Brexit, scrambled Brexit and the constant spurting sound of Nigel Farage’s stream of piping hot, aggressive verbal diarrhoea.
Even people who don’t like football are waving English flags and saying, ‘Ooh, that football’ in a serious tone; they casually mention stuff like, ‘Jordan Pickford reads the game far better than Joe Hart’ and, ‘The right wing tabloid newspapers aren’t even bothering to disguise their hatred for Raheem Sterling’ and other such plainly evident soccer things while farting on the bus to work.
When was the last time England reached the World Cup semi-final? 1990. Megadeth were a couple of months away from releasing Rust In Peace. Even copies of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell were sitting patiently in a record distribution warehouse. Converge had just formed. This, if you do your maths or ask a grown up, was a very long time ago.
And today, England face Croatia and are potentially 90 minutes away from being in the World Cup final for the first time since 1966. The squad – led by waistcoat aficionado Gareth Southgate – have so far dispensed with Tunisia, Panama (the country invented by Van Halen) and Belgium. Alright, Belgium won that game, but it doesn’t matter. They still qualified to go through the last 16, where they beat Colombia after penalties during a particularly scrappy match.
Then, on Saturday past, pubs and living rooms across the nation were engulfed in a fine mist of lager and happy swearing as the team beat Sweden comfortably by two goals to absolutely none at all. Something to remember the next time you’re reduced to tears by Ikea’s cryptic instructions.
What a time to be alive. But it’s not just farting commuters who have succumbed to a strain of what NHS frontline staff have described as ‘World Cup fever’. Some of the biggest names in metal have taken to social media to express their delight, their fears or simply state the obvious as England stake their claim for footie glory.
Let’s start with Body Count frontman Ice T.