It was the biggest communal British experience of the year. On the evening of Thursday June 24, nearly 24 million Britons sat on their sofas watching the England football team lose its penalty shoot-out against Portugal in the quarter-final of Euro 2004. That figure excludes the eight million people who, according to the British Beer & Pub Association, watched the match in pubs and clubs. In short, more than half the population shared a single event. Many of them were sufficiently moved afterwards to set fire to police cars, besiege a Norfolk pub full of Portuguese people, and, in Liverpool, to cut off a man's ear. Britain - and particularly England - achieved greater unity on June 24 than any other big European nation experienced during Euro 2004, or than the US achieves with its most popular annual television programme, the Superbowl. "Football is the national game in a way it never was before," says David Winner, author of a forthcoming cultural history of British football called Those Feet.
In the past, Britons shared non-sporting events, usually royal jubilees, weddings and celebrations. As late as 1987, the Queen could draw 28 million viewers for her Christmas speech. But the royal family has lost its pull since the Saturday morning seven years ago when the country's shops closed for Princess Diana's funeral. Last Christmas, the Queen attracted only 6.5 million viewers. That leaves her far behind Wayne Rooney, Tim Henman and even the runner Kelly Holmes. Britons have spent this summer watching even more television than usual, segueing from Euro 2004 to Wimbledon to the Olympic Games. Test cricket, the Tour de France and Manchester United's meaningless summer tour of the US have filled the holes in people's lives in between. Television audience figures are a good proxy for the nation's pulse, and several sports events this summer have drawn more British viewers than even the most popular episodes of the soap opera Coronation Street. Meanwhile, the English pay more to watch league football on television than any other people in the world. Clearly all this tells us something about them.
