Golden Goal: Jude Bellingham for England v Slovakia (2024)

How vociferously are you allowed to celebrate a goal as a 30-year-old? This was the only thing that tempered my jubilation on 30 June 2024, a moral quandary amid the elation, the beer sweat, the tears.
As I dragged my heavy legs away from the Greenwich beer garden which that day became a golden English garden, having inadvertently collided with my friend’s chin while celebrating Jude Bellingham’s brilliant bicycle kick, I was hit with a pang of shame.
My mate was fine, by the way, fully understanding of my exuberance and laughing the whole thing off. But he is not a football fan in the same way I am and I still felt guilty – not just for his chin pain, but over the perception that I had over-celebrated. Was this behaviour befitting of a professional sports journalist and future father?
I was not the only England-shirted fan to lose their mind in that beer garden, mind you. As in every pub, front room and fan park in the country, Bellingham’s act of mid-air sorcery to single-handedly save England’s Euros had prompted a collective outpouring of joy.
Not all of it was genuine. Pint-throwing has become a national sport in such moments and the internet was awash with it afterwards, pardon the pun. Many on social media see these occasions as a chance to piggyback on the joy and bag a few cheap likes.

Yet there was nothing performative in my reaction to Bellingham’s bolt from the blue. I had to ask someone a second later who had actually scored, such was the extent to which I lost myself. I needed a few deep breaths to recover from the emotional switcheroo; having been solemnly agonising as the seconds ticked down towards Slovakia’s inevitable 1-0 victory, to the explosion that came next. When Harry Kane headed home early in extra-time to make it 2-1, I hared off into empty space and bear-hugged a stranger. This was real.
England games at tournaments tend to elicit such emotions from me, but there was something about that Bellingham goal and that moment of release on that summer’s day. Maybe it was the fact I had watched the 2018 World Cup as an Englishman in Wales, cowering in my own living room for the Panama, Colombia and Sweden games until deciding a train to a Bristolian pub was the only option for the semi-final versus Croatia. After that defeat I was forced by my significant other to sit in a branch of Franco Manca and make small talk over pizza. I wasn’t in the mood for chatting.
Maybe it was because the next tournament was the Covid-restricted Euros of 2021, which ended in the most gutwrenching of final defeats to Italy on penalties, Bukayo Saka and all that, and me storming into our back yard to kick the fence. I spent the next day (my birthday) on the verge of tears.
Maybe it was because Gareth Southgate had struck a chord with me and thousands of England fans with his statesmanlike leadership, his careful and considered press conferences, how he championed inclusivity and diversity. His Three Lions always felt like my Three Lions. I still maintain we were the best team at the 2022 World Cup and were desperately unlucky to lose to France.
Or maybe, as a Manchester United fan, you might argue I simply needed a team to latch on to in the post-Ferguson years and England between 2016 and 2024 were by far the better bet for a meaningful shot at glory. Maybe it was simply because Bellingham scored so late in the game, the goal in equal parts unexpected and spectacular. All these explanations for my release of ecstasy are valid, but why the note of guilt undercutting it all?
It’s a feeling connected to something deeply ingrained in society’s perception of football and its fans. Football is seen as an unseemly sport in the eyes of the political class. A sport still viewed as having a hooligan problem, despite dwindling numbers of reported incidents and arrests. A sport where supporters are not trusted to drink alcohol in the stands.
The recent hijacking of the St George’s flag by those of a certain political persuasion is another body blow for the average English football fan. Such tropes and perceptions are difficult to shake off. Of course, football should be none of the above. For me, it is the purest and most forgiving environment in which a man can show his emotions. It is family, it is friends, it is life. So cavorting wildly to celebrate any goal with your friends – or even strangers – in a beer garden should never be something to apologise for.
Jude Bellingham did not simply save England’s Euro 2024 campaign with that unfathomable overhead kick in the 95th minute against Slovakia. He did not just spare us the painful postmortems that would have been published at the sound of the final whistle in Gelsenkirchen and the start of another grim era for the Three Lions. He brought us together and allowed us to put our emotions on display.
The next time an England tournament goal goes in, you will notice most people around you will be happy, others will be chuffed and some, like me, will lose the complete run of themselves for a few, sweet, lager-soaked seconds. And that’s alright.