Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, Chapter H; Make the people and the whole country proud

The final England chapter of this serial comes tonight, taking us up to the start of their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.

h. Make the people and the whole country proud

Tuesday 27th September 2016.

67 days earlier, the Football Association had made an announcement which would likely have proved divisive, had the average English football fan not been so punch-drunk after the horrors of Euro 2016 and the 2014 World Cup. The replacement for Roy Hodgson as the next English manager would be Sam Allardyce, an appointment that seemed positively perverse from a body that was in so many other respects trying to market itself as thoroughly modern and on trend.

Since the start of the 21st century, England had been jumping from manager with no hint whatsoever of any coherent plan. From Keegan to Eriksson to McClaren to Capello to Hodgson, forever bending in the wind as the FA frittered away the near-successes of 1990 and 1996 with a succession of appointments which hinted at an organisation looking for a solid structure but prevented from building one by the perpetual state of crisis hanging over the team itself.