The culture wars are now just a part of the international break background noise

Oh woe is Jeff Powell, who got upset by the interim England manager's decision not to sing the national anthem against the team he played 40 times for himself.

The international break can be a difficult time for football journalists. Much as we might like to complain about its extravagances and absurdities, the Premier League gives the rest of the game a context, and the loss of it from the schedules—alongside the Championship and the familiar hubbub of the other major European leagues—especially this early in the season—feels like an unwelcome jolt from the building rhythm of the new season.

So, what to do with your time? Hold your nose and descend the ladder into the lower divisions, perhaps into the non-league game? Take the weekend off and catch up with some valuable sleep? Both are viable and realistic options, even if it feels like you should be working, this particular weekend.

But on this occasion it couldn’t even be said that there wasn’t any context to an England match. Away to the Republic of Ireland on the 30th anniversary of the season during which far-right thugs managed to get a game in Dublin abandoned through their behaviour? A new manager for the first time in eight years, even if only on an interim basis? With two players in his starting eleven who have, shall we say, a complex relationship with their opponents? C’mon lads, use your imagination.

Instead, what we were treated to was an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph which castigated Lee Carsley for saying that he would not be singing the national anthem before the match. Powell vented his spleen over this perceived slight and, of course, both social and national media have had an absolute field day with it all.

It seems reasonable to understand that, following on from the saga of the tiny alternative coloured cross that was put on the back of the new England shirts during the summer, we can expect this sort of splenetic diatribe every time an England match, from now on. Culture war gotta culture war, and the dying embers of the generation of frost on the window sills have got to cling onto something from a world that is disappearing from view.

I do not believe Jeff Powell to be an idiot. He surely knows fully well that Carsley, while born in Birmingham, qualified to play for Ireland through one of his grandparents and consequently made 40 appearances for that country. He also surely knows that England and Ireland have a significantly complex relationship. As someone who grew up in England in the 1970s and 1980s, you’d think that he’d remember that better than most.

And take a step further back, and where is this requirement to sing the national anthem coming from? No-one is obliged to sing anything before the start of a football match. There’s a tiny possibility that, for people, God Save the King means something quite different to what it means to the average reader of the Daily Telegraph. And particularly in Dublin, of places. Powell presumably knows this fully well. I repeat: I do not believe Jeff Powell to be an idiot.

The matter carried over into the match itself, when the early England goals which killed it stone dead before half-time were scored by Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, both of whom played for Ireland at younger levels before switching to England to play for the senior men’s team. Rice didn’t celebrate his goal. Grealish did.

Of course, their right to switch is within the rules, as dictated by FIFA, and they had every right to react in whatever way they wished. Again, it’s complex. It is entirely understandable that Ireland should have been furious that two excellent players should have come through their youth systems before transferring to a ‘bigger club’ because they could. That would be annoying in and of itself. Add that pesky context again, and it becomes even more so.

And likewise, their decision over whether to celebrate their goals or not is entirely personal to them. The idea that anyone should be dictating how a player should react to such a moment of high emotion feels wrong, so long as the player concerned isn’t being deliberately goading or trying to to incite anything. We all know what too much looks like. We don’t need to be told.

England have had foreign coaches before. Neither Sven Goran Eriksson not Fabio Capello ever did. And the world kept spinning on its axis. Perhaps the point of all of this is that dual nationality is complex. Do you pledge loyalty to all of your countries of origin? Is that possible? What are the rules, here?

If there is a rule, in terms of identity, there aren’t any. Lee Carsley was born in Birmingham. He played entire club career in England and has already managed the under-20 and under-21 teams. He’s lived his entire life in England. But he also represented Ireland 40 times over a period of more than a decade. He qualified under the existing rules, rules which have been in place for a really long time and which few ever have any complaint over unless they’re on the receiving end of them.

Obviously football has its rules over international football about not swapping teams after a certain point to prevent ‘bigger’ countries just gobbling up every available player, but these rules have clearly got more to do with keeping international football as a some sort of spectacle than anything else. Football with anything approaching a transfer market would be a horrible experience, and we all know it.

Out there in the normal world, your heritage is your heritage, and it’s fairly commonly assented that people can identify with as much or as little of it as they wish. It’s just that most of us don’t have to stand in front of a television, live in front of millions of eyeballs, belting out a song about some sausage-fingered posho who God seems to prefer to the rest of us.

And there is something mildly tragic about this ongoing culture wars bilge. The 1960s aren’t coming back. Jeff Powell’s youth isn’t coming back. And all this lashing out is at least to a point the death rattle of a generation, some of whom are not reacting well to the passing of the decades. Those who want to preserve us all in the aspic of their youths are fighting a losing battle, and there’s something faintly sad about the fact that they seem unable to see this.

This is the second time in just a few months that this has been pumped into the ionosphere by a far-right rag, so it’s reasonable to assume that we can expect a fresh one with every international break, from now on. It’s an injection into discourse about which nobody had been talking, about pushing a fresh nationalist view into our conversation. I wouldn’t be here talking about this early on a Monday morning had it not been for this piece. You wouldn’t have been discussing it on social media, either. So perhaps it’s you and I who’ve been the idiots for taking the obvious bait.