Come full-time on Saturday there was a heap of chat about who had been the man of the evening, Harry Kane, Luke Shaw and Raheem Sterling the chief contenders for the award. Not one of them, though, had put in a shift like former England international Luther Blissett on GB News, his appearance as a panellist on Tonight Live with Nana Akua lasting a whole three hours.
So drained did he appear to be by the end of it, you had your doubts about whether he’d be fit for the semi-finals.
Psychotherapist Lucy Beresford, Luther's fellow panellist, talked about what a unifying experience it was for the country to be following England's thus-far-rampant Euro 2020 journey, how "there's something quite powerful about everyone watching the game right now because we've got so used to streaming things and watching them when we want to".
This was a good point, the only problem being that Luther, Lucy and Nana weren’t among those enjoying the unifying experience of watching the game live because Nana’s show started just as the second half was kicking off.
Luther, then, was being asked to analyse a game that he couldn’t actually see, only Nana’s updates – “breaking news, it’s 2-0 to England!” – letting him know the score.
Once it hit 4-0 she headed over to reporter Duncan Sleightholme who was stationed at Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park stadium where 600 people had gathered to watch the game on a big screen.
GB News, which has kind of been billed as a channel for non-woke people, has been quite rudely ridiculed for rarely captioning the location of its reporters accurately, but that was probably just a teething issue in its early days that will since have been sorted.
Coincidence
Any way, Duncan was in Plymouth, the caption saying “Hull”, and was overcome by the avalanche of goals.
“We’re losing track here – we had a goal and then another goal and then another goal and then another goal,” he said. “And what a great night to be called Harry – three of those goals were scored by people called Harry!”
“That is a bit of coincidence, isn’t it,” said Nana.
She then returned to her panel, asking Luther “are Wales out yet”, while admiring the Aston Villa shirt Lucy had just pulled on. “I thought it was a Queens Park Rangers shirt, same colours,” she said.
While waiting for the final whistle, she parked football for a moment. “Another injury – is it time for Harrison Ford to hang up his whip?”
By now, Luther had the look of a broken man.
He was revived, though, when Nana told him they had clips of England’s four goals. First they showed the fourth, then the third, then the second, then the second again, then the first, then the fourth again, then the first, etc. By now, GB News viewers thought England had won 26-0.
Back to Duncan in Plymouth/Hull where he found a very merry beer-wielding lady called Debbie to chat to. She, too, was confused about the scoreline. “We scored FOUR goals,” she bellowed, while holding up five fingers.
Feel the energy
Then it was up to “North Berwick” to speak by Zoom to Harry Redknapp, who lives in Bournemouth. “So many Harrys tonight,” said Nana, this one declaring the performance to be “triffic”.
Then a quick debate about a school that has made smiling compulsory for students, before heading to the Dun Cow pub in Durham to speak to landlady Jill who said the evening had been “brilliant” apart from when her customers jumped up four times to celebrate England goals when Covid regulations stipulate they should remain seated. “I can feel the energy,” said Nana.
Back to Duncan in Hull/Plymouth/North Berwick/Saigon who had three young ladies with him.
“Itsh aaaamaszhin,” said one.
“Why is it amazing,” asked Duncan.
“BECOSH FUTBOWL’S CLUMMIN’ HOOOOOOME!”
Luther smiled, by then also sensing football was coming home, but after those three hours, you’d a notion home was the only place he wanted to be.
