LUKE MARSDEN: It's time to fly those England flags proudly

Up until the last week, I’ve never in my life uttered that phrase, but I’m now fully onboard with anyone and everyone shouting it.

Football hasn’t ever really been a sport I’ve been interested in (in fact no sport has been!).

The last physical Latics match I saw I mistakenly watched a carrier bag for 10 minutes thinking that was the ball.

These last two England games have been nothing short of captivating though, not because I thought that England played all that well but because of the national hype. Lads shouting in the street “it’s coming home,” people overall in a better mood, bosses suggesting late starts and early finishes.

This is football fever and I love it!

If you held a gun to my head I’d struggle to name more than five England football players but I don’t think that matters. What matters is the support that bandwagon football fans like me are giving our team. Sadly, being patriotic is becoming a dirty word, but as England are on the cusp of winning a major tournament for the first time in over five decades I think we need to get our flags out and wave them high.

After the last 18 months as a nation, we need this. We need England to become European Champions.

The euphoria that the nation will feel tomorrow if England dare to make history will be something that many of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes.

But if we can take some comfort over what has happened the last year or so, anything can literally happen.

So go, get an England shirt, get a flag and even paint your face, tell complete strangers that it is indeed coming home and let’s hope this feeling lasts just a little bit longer...

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