When England won the World Cup in 1966 it was said that it gave a great fillip to Harold Wilson and his Labour government, which had won a landslide election in March that year.
Germany’s exit from the World Cup this year is in many ways a mirror of what is happening in Germany at present.
Volkswagen, Europe’s largest car manufacturer plans to cut up to 100,000 jobs and end production at four plants in Germany.
But if England wins the World Cup later this month, at least they can thank their German manager, Thomas Tuchel.
Might it have been the new Labour government that inspired the team to go for the win in 1966?
In the 1974 World Cup, held in Germany, had the East German team not beaten West Germany, might West Germany not have won the final?
If all the ifs and buts made pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers.
1 comment:
An interesting reflection Michael. It reminds me that human beings are inveterate meaning-makers.
We see faces where there are no faces, patterns where there may be none, and weave coincidences into compelling narratives. We connect football victories to governments, economic fortunes to sporting success, and chance events to destiny. Sometimes those connections are real. Often they are stories we tell ourselves after the fact.
Perhaps this is our way of anchoring our cosmic wildness into some kind of meaningful existence. A universe governed by chance and complexity can feel unsettling, so we instinctively search for coherence. We don’t merely observe events; we interpret them, joining the dots into a picture that helps us feel the world makes sense.
The challenge is not to abandon the search for meaning, that is one of the noblest parts of being human, but to remain humble enough to recognise the difference between patterns we discover and patterns we invent.
As Carl Jung observed, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Perhaps that wisdom applies as much to nations and football supporters as it does to individuals.
Dido, if all the ifs and buts were pots and pans, there’d indeed be no need for tinkers.
DD
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