Kane, absent friends and the patriot games
David Batty was so committed to playing for England that his determination to reach Burnham Beeches, England’s 90s hotel base, in a snow storm late at night became the stuff of squad legend. Batty simply shrugged off the difficulties of what proved a nine-hour odyssey from Yorkshire to Buckinghamshire, preferring to focus on preparing for training. His England peers marvelled as details slowly leaked out about Batty’s journey, including his car getting stuck in a snow-drift and requiring a local farmer’s tractor to pull him out and help him on his way.
Batty embodied total commitment to his country in 42 caps across the 90s. Even his low-point, that penalty saved by Argentina’s Carlos Roa at France 98, highlighted his passion for England. He’d never taken a penalty before but, following extra time in St-Etienne, Glenn Hoddle needed a fifth taker. David Beckham had been sent off and Darren Anderton, Graeme Le Saux and Paul Scholes all taken off. “All right, yes,” Batty told Hoddle. Anything for his team, for his country.
After missing that penalty, Batty was offered an ad by Pizza Hut, attempting to repeat their post-Euro 96 one with Gareth Southgate, Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle. Batty turned the offer down, telling friends that he absolutely would not profit from the misery of England fans. He received plenty of supportive letters about the missed penalty. People just admired him for volunteering when his country needed him.
Batty rarely spoke then, and even now lives in quiet retirement with his family in Yorkshire, but he has proudly kept opponents’ shirts collected on England duty, including Thomas Hassler (Germany, Wembley 1991), Eric Cantona (France, Malmo 1992) and Gica Popescu (Romania, Toulouse 1998). England mattered to him.
And that was at a time when player were pilloried for failure in tournaments, when the atmosphere in the camp was occasionally affected by club cliques. Jonathan Woodgate asked Batty, his Leeds United team-mate, to knock on his door at Burnham Beeches when going down to dinner. Because Woodgate knew when he walked into the restaurant there would be table of Manchester United players, another of Arsenal and another of Liverpool. Clique-bait.
That eventually changed under Gareth Southgate. He worked hard to rebuild connections between England and clubs, between players and fans, between players and media. As Harry Kane, made captain by Southgate, told ITV Sport in yesterday’s revealing interview, Southgate brought back “the joy to play for England…every camp, people were excited to come”.
There have now been nine withdrawals with players citing injury, and some are undoubtedly more than minor niggles, but it will be interesting to see how many of the nine start for their clubs when the Premier League resumes at 12.30 Saturday week. Clubs pay the players and these withdrawals were inevitable. Carsley even predicted it. “We know a lot of the squad are carrying injuries,” Carsley said on naming his original 26-man squad last week.
Kane has been the leader here. It is rare for an England captain to speak out about team-mates, especially for Kane, normally the master of diplomacy. “It’s a shame,” Kane said of the withdrawals of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Aaron Ramsdale, Levi Colwill and now Branthwaite. “It's a tough period of the season and maybe there's been taken advantage of that little bit. I don't really like it if I'm totally honest. England comes before anything, any club situation.”
Yet the Bayern Munich striker is fortunate to play in an intelligent footballing country which has a winter break. After Bayern play RB Leipzig on December 20, they don’t play again until January 11 against Borussia Moenchengladbach. His England team-mates who play for Premier League clubs have four games apiece in that period. English football doesn’t have a winter break so their clubs want players to catch their breath where they can.