The role of England manager has been called “the impossible job”. There’s the weight of expectation, of leading a nation’s hopes. Get one big decision wrong, or luck goes against you, and the newspapers, the fans, the public turn on you.
I’m put in mind of this for two reasons this week – one, that I saw for the second time James Graham’s fantastic play Dear England, about the current England football manager Gareth Southgate and how he stamped his mark on the job, changing the culture of the England team from within, bringing first the players with him and then the whole nation.
