Days like this do not come around very often. But when they do, there is almost nothing like it. Across the country something special is about to happen and we are all going to experience it together. That is the power of sport at its best.
Football is the people’s game. A sport built by ordinary working-class people and enjoyed by millions. Our inspiring young England team is drawn from diverse communities across England – Stockport, Washington, Bury and Ealing. When kids turn on their TV sets tonight they will see players who look and sound like them, and have gone on to represent their country at the highest level on a world stage.
Those players are part of one of the richest football cultures in the world. The clubs that produced them are rooted in our towns, villages and cities, and help to shape and define us just as we shape and define them. A football club is more than a club – it’s part of our civic inheritance, handed down through the generations.
The groundswell of support for England in this tournament is a reminder that football is nothing without its fans. But in recent times, far too many clubs up and down our football pyramid have put the interests of fans last. Too many of the systems that should protect them have failed. That has to change and our government is on a mission to make sure it does.
This is personal to me. In Wigan, we had to fight against dodgy ownership, inadequate regulation and remote systems to save Wigan Athletic, twice, and came close to losing the lot. We were the lucky ones. In nearby Bury, a bad owner sent a club founded in 1885 crashing out of the Football League. After the expulsion, fans would gather outside the gates of Gigg Lane on Saturdays, unsure of where to be without the familiar drumbeat of ritual, family and tradition.
Local and grassroots clubs are the places where today’s superstars, and even future Lions, got their first chance. Clubs like Barnsley helped to bring through John Stones; Kobbie Mainoo, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer – all grew up in a five-mile radius of Stockport and played for their local clubs before being scouted. Exeter City gave a young Ollie Watkins his first break; on Wednesday I was lucky enough to watch him score the last-minute winner that took us to the final.
This England team is testament to the fact that in football, as in all walks of life, talent is everywhere. But too often, the opportunities that enable those talents to flourish are not.
This must change. Prioritising support for the grassroots as a visible symbol that those young people matter to us and that sport has the power to transform lives in every part of Britain. That is our ambition.
I’ll be cheering them on tonight, knowing that whatever the result, this England team has shown us that the value of sport is measured not just in trophies, but in what it brings to our communities and our country.
That is why our government will waste no time in building a system that works for all of us, with fans and communities at its heart. The England team have already done us proud. Now our hard work begins.
• Lisa Nandy is the secretary of state for culture, media and sport
