A recorded announcement plays on a loop on the approach to Wembley Stadium. “I’m Clive Tyldesley,” says the voice, for the voice is indeed Clive Tyldesley’s. “It is not allowed to drink alcohol on Olympic Way or the surrounding streets. This is due to a Public Space Protection Order. I’m sorry, it’s the law.”
On Tyldesley goes, advising fans that anybody caught with an open container of alcohol will be dealt with by law enforcement officers, before warning that bags over a certain size will not be permitted into the stadium. “I’m sorry,” Tyldesley repeats, and to be fair he genuinely does sound as if he’s sorry about all this, almost as if he’s reading the message under duress. Then, after a short silence, the recording plays again: “I’m Clive Tyldesley. It is not allowed …”
You will often hear it said that totalitarianism rarely marches in through the door wearing jackboots and military insignia but instead cloaks itself in the softly spoken register of compassion, familiar voices preaching family values. Let’s be very clear here: I am not saying that the onset of martial law in Britain will be heralded by the dulcet tones of Clive Tyldesley being piped over public loudspeakers, explaining that while burdensome these things must nevertheless be done for the greater good. I am categorically not saying that.
All the same there is a weird, menacing kind of vibe to the new Wembley: this vast meaningless white obelisk plonked down in the middle of Brent, slowly chewing up the land around it, sprouting car parks and hotels like pustules.
Other countries take their national sides out on the road, inflect them with local flavour and local colour, bring them to the people. Wembley instead demands that the people bring themselves to it, festoons itself in turquoise LED screens, keeps you safely at arm’s length.
This is why in 16 years it has never really felt like the heart and soul of the England side, even on its good days. It is a headquarters rather than a home, a place of symbols and ciphers and placards and Newspeak, a blank canvas that resists all attempts to fill it. And so perhaps its defining motif is not the big final or showpiece event but games like this, when England are 2-0 up in a contest long since stripped of all sporting jeopardy, when the noise barely bubbles above a simmer: football as a kind of inane scrolling content.
Which is to take nothing away from England, who efficiently killed off the game in three second- half minutes and spent most of the rest of the time trying desperately not to pick up a knock. Gareth Southgate’s side have effectively mastered the art of the jeopardy-free qualification stroll and just 180 minutes into their Euro 2024 campaign their presence in Germany next summer is pretty much secure.
But of course there was an emotive dimension to this game as well, even if nobody was quite sure how to deal with it. Ukraine, a year after the invasion of their country, have lost none of their focus or sense of mission, never lost sight of the idea that the sporting arena provides them with a vital opportunity to express who they are as a people and a nation. They were fervently supported throughout by the noisy pocket of fans in the stadium’s north-east corner, many of them refugees who had been given free tickets by the Football Association.
No, the uncertainty belonged to everyone else. Before the game the two sides randomly arranged themselves behind a flag reading “PEACE”, as another disembodied voice on the public address system urged the crowd to “show solidarity as we continue to hope for peace in Ukraine”.
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This is pretty much how European football has been dealing with the whole Ukraine issue ever since it popped up: beige platitudes of optimism, “hopes” but under no circumstances “prayers”, a vague but indeterminate longing for peace. We, the football family, acknowledge that this thing is a thing. It would be inappropriate at this stage to comment further.
Perhaps it would also have been inappropriate to list all the ways in which English football has indulged and courted Russian favour over the years, from the vast unaccountable billions that bankrolled the likes of Chelsea and Portsmouth and Reading to the deal signed by Manchester United with the state airline Aeroflot, to the Russia flag that hung for years at Stamford Bridge in loving tribute to Roman Abramovich.
“The efficiency, the welcome, the warmth of the Russian people has really impressed me,” the then FA chair, Greg Clarke, said on a visit to the 2018 World Cup. “I am sad there aren’t more English people here sharing this wonderful football festival.”
Still, we continue to hope for peace, so that is something. At full-time the beaten Ukrainian players drifted over towards their adoring fans, every single one of whom had stayed to acclaim them.
Around them what was left of the England section was rapidly emptying, turquoise signs pointing them towards their onward transport. As they left an LED sign thanked them for visiting Wembley and urged them to come again soon.
