A Demonstration in Passive-Aggressive Self-Justification

This football publication is strangely tedious, yet oddly captivating. Even title is confusing. Dear England currently names a popular theatrical production, an forthcoming TV show, and a open letter penned by Gareth Southgate in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England is not formally tied to any of those. It stands as an oddity in the expanding Dear England universe, a book about guidance: a classically uninspiring top-level coach theme that the author follows persistently, using the words “leadership”, “guiding” or “management” no fewer than 500 times across 336 pages.

Questions Raised

“Who are the leaders? What actions do leaders take? What knowledge do leaders possess?” the author questions in the opening, outlining his stall, but stopping short to ask “Why are leaders?”, topics likely saved for a future volume.

Otherwise, this publication has a notable absence in the middle. It’s an exercise in subtly confrontational personal vindication, in coming close without actually saying the underlying truth, hopping nimbly from lingering grievance to fresh pain across a assortment of data visualizations, corporate platitudes and discussions about historical figures.

Engagement

Engaging with the text is like listening to your parents having a mannered but profoundly personal debate in the adjacent space while you’re attempting to concentrate on a professional workshop titled “112 Reasons Why Naturally I Had the Last Laugh”. But it is also impossible to put down, as the author keeps coming close to a topic you truly wish to hear about, before abruptly changing tack.

Disclosures

Readers will find always controversial revelations in publications like these, explained by the intense obsession with England managerdom. The most notable ones are: the manager decided he was certainly going to quit as England manager after spectators hurled containers at him at the tournament; he came very close to abandoning the game at the interval against Bulgaria in 2019 after his squad members were racially abused; he invented the idea of specialist dead-ball trainers and everyone in the Premier League is now adopting his methods; he has now lost his passion for football, a surprising admission thrown away in a brief section at the conclusion.

Managing England through a period of fury, aspiration, upheaval and pandemic restrictions was a brutal experience. The scars are evidently still fresh.

Commonplace Material

Otherwise, the narrative is overrun with an computer-generated verbal clutter of generic leadership chat. Review editions of this book were provided with critics under secrecy pacts ahead of publication, likely out of apprehension someone might leak that “challenging discussions can, by their nature, be tough”, that you should always look before you leap, that guidance takes place where transformation combines with compassion.

Sincere Expression

Readers will find nevertheless real feeling here. Leading England through a time of rage, optimism, turmoil and lockdown was a harsh experience. The bruises are clearly still fresh, albeit conveyed in a jargon-laden reinvention of the standard coach story: how my decisions were correct about all matters throughout.

Specific Examples

The publication’s opening passage, Trojan-horsed as gripping recollections of the final of the European Championship, is all about how effective Southgate in fact was at substitutes (the major common complaint revolving around he was not successful at substitutes). Later, he delves into significant detail about how he oversaw the deciding game of 2021 impeccably – particularly the losing penalty shootout – because he adhered to a set protocol, which must mean that throwing on youthful talents at the last moment to take the biggest kick of their existence was logical and correct.

That approach was confirmed by a victorious tiebreaker against the Swiss team four years later after a game where England spent 120 minutes looking as if they were attempting to put on a jumper the wrong way round. “Our commanding performance in that shootout was simply thrilling,” Southgate notes, in between likening the performance to US Navy Seals eliminating Osama bin Laden. Oh Gareth.

Avoided Revelations

On the occasions we do get close to a insight, Southgate backs away from naming names or giving us the details. We hear there were difficult England squad members who required more consideration, perhaps because they were indulged early in their careers. But as you expect eagerly, the author is already veering off into something named a specific management theory, which asserts that as opposed to a grouping of characteristics or principles, culture is in fact something that is formed by, unfortunately, stop, we’ve heard enough.

Highlights

Among the stronger sections are when he discusses about the gradual nature of building resilience in the next generation, or how he attempted to define national identity more clearly and more constructively than any public personality in the spotlight. Most impressively, there is a genuinely absorbing narrative of that harrowing evening in Sofia where England’s black players were targeted with hatred (and afterwards supported vigorously by their manager).

Genuine Ending

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