Dear Gareth, England fans did not execute Jordan Henderson; all they did was boo

Gareth Southgate likes an open letter so John Nicholson has written one to him. And he’s really not happy with his mealy-mouthed nonsense.

Dear Gareth,

I’m sorry to have to write this. But your post-match interview on Friday was such nonsense that I had no choice.

You seemed perplexed as to why some fans booed Jordan Henderson when you subbed him, saying you just didn’t understand it and that ‘it defies logic.’ It doesn’t. It is completely logical.

In case you really don’t understand why, here’s a breakdown of the situation, Gareth.

Football is a public arena. We are the public, but we’re exploited at every turn, are largely powerless over the game beyond our diminishing weight as an economic unit and we want to express our disgruntlement about the previously LGBT supportive Henderson who, despite already being richer than anyone else from Sunderland with the exception of former Eurythmics man, Dave Stewart, chose to take money from a nation state where being gay is outlawed under pain of death. And now he’s shilling for that state, as well as playing football there.

That’s why. It’s not trivial. It doesn’t deserve your attempt at an airy dismissal.

Had he been a well-known homophobe, perhaps the reaction wouldn’t be so strong. But he wasn’t. It made us question his previous commitment to the cause and it felt like a betrayal. And now you’re making us question your commitment to the cause too. And that also feels like a betrayal from someone who we felt had set a new standard for empathy and decency in football.

So, given that, what would you like us to do, Gareth? Where should we express our disappointment and displeasure at the man’s choice? How should we do it? A strongly worded email to Football365 doesn’t have the same power as booing a player at Wembley.

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You see, Gareth, and we know you absolutely know this, football isn’t just about a game. It is as political as it is sporting, now more than ever. It is about citizens, community and values. It has a societal impact and it is played for us, the people. We can’t somehow cut ourselves out of all of that and just in the common and tediously stupid refrain ‘stick to the football’. It is naive to think we could or should.

Everything exists in a context, Gareth. And being murdered for being gay is not some quaint foreign folk tradition. Were this in any other context, you would never say we should not be critical of a multi-millionaire’s unnecessary choice to work for a state that puts people to death for the nature of their sexuality. But here we are.

And after all, it’s just booing. It’s not like we sacrificed a journalist by killing him and chopping him up into pieces, is it? We know the world is imperfect, we know we’re imperfect, we know there is always going to be whataboutery presented to obfuscate crimes and we know who will deploy such whataboutery, and so do you Gareth. They are not your friends either, by the way.

But should we just shut up? Are we really made 100% impotent because our heinous government – a government that a vast majority of the population did not vote for – sells arms to Saudi Arabia? Because make no mistake, that is what you are saying to us. You’re saying we should just shut up and accept the unacceptable. If you’re genuinely perplexed by it – and I don’t believe you really are – take a telling.

Yes there will be people booing Henderson who are just booing for booing’s sake, but do not underestimate how anything from disappointing to offensive many find Henderson’s actions and it is unrealistic and undesirable to think those feelings will not find an expression at a game of football. It is literally all people can do. They’re not going ‘round his house with flaming torches. They’re just booing in a moment when it will be heard.

It isn’t as simple as expressing displeasure at the man himself, it is expressing solidarity with those suffering discrimination for being gay, it is expressing disgust at the regime that makes this happen. Can’t we do that in the Southgate universe?

England fans booed David Beckham unreasonably, they booed Owen Hargreaves unreasonably, they booed Frank Lampard unreasonably. I don’t approve of booing players just because you don’t like them or think they shouldn’t have been picked. It’s childish and pathetic.

But this isn’t that for most people. This is serious stuff which isn’t just Henderson-related but speaks to a wider discontentment with the direction of travel in elite football where everything and everyone is for sale to the highest bidder and money matters much much more than morality. You are playing for us, remember? We do matter.

If you don’t understand that Gareth, then imagine for a moment that your son is murdered for being gay and the murderer gets away with the crime. Appalling isn’t it? Put to death for being who he is. Now imagine that one of the well-off workers you manage, who had previously been very supportive to your son, goes to work for the murderer because he pays better than anyone else, even though he is already very, very rich and has plenty of other options. How would you feel? I wager you’d feel booing wouldn’t be quite a sufficient way to express your disgust or anger. Football doesn’t come before everything and anything else. Again, you know that. Tell us why it should on this occasion. Your answers to date suggest you can’t.

Booing is the least we can do. Yes, there is cruelty happening all over the world, all of the time. We can’t possibly grieve for everyone and everything that is suffering, but that doesn’t mean we don’t protest when someone’s actions so nakedly rubs our noses in their hypocrisy and sin.

Of all people I never expected you Gareth to tell us to just ‘stick to the football’ especially since you stood against such narrowness in your 2021 open letter. We thought you understood that football is an expression of society and of community. Don’t get old mannish and reactionary on us now, and that’s not something I ever thought I’d have to write about you. We thought you were better than that. Were we wrong?

Yours, disappointedly,

Johnny