The World Cup–How Has It Affected The Central London Property Market?


It hasn’t affected it one bit.

Aside from more estate agents sporting waistcoats, not much has changed vis a vis football and the central London property market but what has changed is our collective attitude towards the England football team.

This is an unashamed blog about football, England and our World Cup adventure that came to a premature end on Wednesday night.

The Before…

As the Premier League season finished, all eyes were on Russia 2018. The toilet-paper tabloids had us believe that the story of the tournament was going to be more about fighting than football with advice ranging from ‘Russian Hooligans Are Waiting For YOU’ to ‘If You Want To Live, Don’t Go To Russia For The World Cup’.

So the fans had no chance and, if the collective consciousness of a nation was to be believed, nor did the players.

After the embarrassment of Allardyce and the debacles of Keegan, McLaren, Capello and Hodgson, Southgate was the safe option. An FA ‘yes man’ who would tow the party line but not pull up any trees. His squad would be a safe option. His tactics would be a safe option. We were destined for more of the same. Absolute mediocrity.

But we were used to it. What else did we expect? Remember, this was a group of players that was billed, given their age and lack of tournament experience, as little more than a development squad for Euro 2020 and Qatar 2022.

There really was very little to get excited about. Our kids would get turned over by anyone half-decent, the manager was insipid and unimaginative, our fans were all going to get a Russian-style kicking as soon as they stepped off the plane and it would take 15 years to get around Russia on the train.

The During…

The World Cup kicked off in style with Russia drubbing Saudi Arabia 5-0 and a last-minute Ronaldo free-kick into the top bin rescuing Portugal a draw against pre-tournament favourites Spain (along with Germany, Argentina, Brazil and France…)

Thanks to Harry Kane, we nicked a win against Tunisia and gubbed Panama 6-1 but we hadn’t really got going. With both teams having qualified already, the Belgium game was, dependent on your news source, either tactically excellent or tactically naïve from Southgate. Either way, his decision was justified since we avoided the harder route to a potential appearance in our first final for 52 years.

Colombia was a hard test. They niggled and fouled and managed the dark arts very well but thanks to Jordan Pickford and Eric Dier, we squeaked through.

Be honest, when Jordan Henderson missed, how many of you thought ‘bloody hell, here we go again…’

Football won over anti-football. Sweden next. Gary Neville described them as a dog of a team to play against but we swept past them with relative ease. England were in a World Cup semi-final.

We had a real opportunity. No question, Croatia were the stand-out team of the group stage. They beat Iceland and Nigeria and thrashed – that’s the only word for it – an Argentina side with a barely recognisable Leo Messi and a front four of star names – Higuaín, Aguero, Dybala and Di Maria but they could only manage to beat Denmark on penalties in the Round of 16 and Russia on penalties in the quarters.

For the first time in years, perhaps since Euro 96, the England team had a togetherness, belief and a leadership team steered by Gareth Southgate who never veered away from his way of playing football and ensuring his charges conducted themselves off the pitch the right way. We had the talent on the pitch for sure but we also had what was lacking in virtually every squad since 1966.

They had collectively bought into the manager’s vision and they understood their responsibilities as young rich footballers and also as representatives of a nation of fans that had become disenfranchised with what they were watching.

Speaking to the Times back in May, Rio Ferdinand said that inter-club rivalry in 2010 ‘killed’ the so-called Golden Generation.

‘It overshadowed things. It killed that England team, that generation. One year we would have been fighting Liverpool to win the league, another year it would be Chelsea. So I was never going to walk into the England dressing room and open up to Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, John Terry or Joe Cole at Chelsea, or Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher at Liverpool.

I wouldn’t open up because of the fear they would take something back to their club and use it against us, to make them better than us. I didn’t really want to engage with them.

I didn’t realise that what I was doing was hurting England at the time. I was so engrossed, so obsessed with winning with Man United – nothing else mattered.’

We didn’t have any of that this time. The players were engaged with the public and the media. They were honest and forthright. They made us like them again.

If you haven’t heard, we lost 2-1 to Croatia after extra time. Kieron Tripper, one of the stars of our campaign stuck a pearl of a free-kick into the top corner but a goal midway through the second half by Ivan Perisic and a winner from veteran Mario Mandzukic in extra-time did us. We were tired. We got beaten by the better team. There are no scapegoats. No-one got sent off, no-one missed a penalty, no-one scored an own goal. We simply got beaten by a better team.

The After…

What legacy will this young team leave behind? Technically the tournament’s not quite over for them,. There’s the ignominy of the 3^rd/4^th place play-off this weekend but that aside, what Gareth Southgate has done is fulfilled his first brief as manager of England. He said that one of his main objectives was to address and then repair the disconnect between the players and the fans. If that was possible, it would be a huge boon for the team and give people a reason to love the England football team again.

These are young, hungry footballers who wear the England shirt with a pride we haven’t seen for years. They will go back to their club sides knowing they got further than perennial favourites Germany, Spain, Argentina and Brazil. These boys are winners. The Premier League will benefit, they will grow in confidence knowing they can compete on a level playing field with the world’s best and perhaps most importantly they now have a winning mentality.

Now we know for sure we’re not going to win the World Cup this time, the true measure of these guys is how they overcome this disappointment and knowing what we know about them now, they’ll be just fine.

But the real winners of England’s World Cup campaign? David Baddiel and Frank Skinner.

As always, if you have a property enquiry we can help you with, contact us today on 020 7629 1088 or info@bdgsp.co.uk.