This is very much a modern version of the "Permanent Butskellism" counterfactual in the Nick Hancock/Chris England book based around Gordon Banks playing in the 1970 quarter-final, as opposed to the much bleaker, Powellian version that many will be familiar with. As in that case, there are a great many potential holes in this theory - certainly in that case Labour would have had to pass something like 'In Place of Strife' PDQ after winning in 1970 to prevent what actually happened from happening, and it would also have helped massively for Murdoch not to buy the Sun and for the struggling Daily Mail to throw in the towel rather than relaunching as a tabloid, and in terms of the populist Right-wing press similar factors apply here. But let's go:
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Anyone who remembers when the FA Cup Final was an unrivalled national event (which was why the BBC always beat ITV so heavily when both channels showed it - people who had little interest in the game, and watched it on the level of Trooping the Colour, *had* to watch on the BBC; among the game's core audience ITV, which in later years would surrender a position of considerable advantage among that demographic, did relatively better) will recall that it was famously very difficult to get booked and almost impossible to get sent off, even for things that would have been worthy of such punishments in League games even then. Now that it has been reduced to something much closer to the level of domestic Cup competitions in most other countries where association football is to the fore, refereeing rules and norms are much more as they would be in any other game. Generally speaking, the Europeanisation of the game - now, alas, threatened - has meant that players cannot get away with what they once could. But one of the last great examples of this - the idea that it was so special, so quasi-formal, that normal rules of discipline didn't apply - was Roger Milford's failure even to book Paul Gascoigne for his foul on Garry Parker (described in a report which I think comes from the Daily Telegraph at the time as "straight out of the manual of kick-boxing") early in the 1991 final. Let us imagine that he had been booked and, knowing that a second yellow card would get him sent off, he hadn't then fouled Gary Charles, the foul that kept him out of the game for a year and from which, along with a second lengthy injury during his time in Italy, he would never fully recover.
As a consequence Gascoigne remains a sharper and better player, converts *that* chance in the Euro 96 semi-final and England then win the tournament. As a consequence, the general attitude in England - especially among the working class who voted disproportionately for Brexit - towards mainland Europe, and especially Germany, becomes calmer, more comfortable, more at ease, fewer hang-ups, less of a sense of being humiliated and out of their depth in their company (this is also a central facet of 1970 counterfactuals, of course, and I can easily buy the argument that they're believable in that context but not after Thatcherism and Heysel and the Sun have already happened; I'm just trying to create an equivalent where I can actually remember the PoD myself, even if older posters will say, possibly correctly, that it was already too late). But as a consequence, the general mood in Blair's early years in power (one writer in Melody Maker suggested in mock-terror that the Tories might win a fifth term if England won Euro 96, but that was clearly never going to happen - Labour had easily won the "patriotic battle" and, even if Blair was a good deal posher than Major, and that posh education wasn't even in England, Blair would have been taken far more seriously and seen as far more convincing associating himself with such a success than Major would have been) is a good deal more attuned and inclined towards joining the single currency. As a consequence, Blair is able to win - however narrowly - a referendum for joining the euro, and although this obviously becomes massively unpopular post-2008, the UK is effectively locked into the EU through its membership of the single currency so can never practically leave.
Or is all this - even assuming that a yellow card would have calmed Gascoigne's head in that match - ASB? Certainly, I don't think England would have had Euro 96 on a plate had they won the semi-final; I can easily imagine a 2004 situation happening where the sheer pressure of the moment would have got to them, and the Czech Republic (for whom it was also an anniversary year of their only major title, even if part of the country that had won in 1976 had since seceded) could have been Greece to their Portugal.
But then, there's a convincing argument that one man typing "legitimate" when he meant "illegitimate" - the sort of mistake we all make when tired or busy - changed the result of the 2016 US election ...
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Anyone who remembers when the FA Cup Final was an unrivalled national event (which was why the BBC always beat ITV so heavily when both channels showed it - people who had little interest in the game, and watched it on the level of Trooping the Colour, *had* to watch on the BBC; among the game's core audience ITV, which in later years would surrender a position of considerable advantage among that demographic, did relatively better) will recall that it was famously very difficult to get booked and almost impossible to get sent off, even for things that would have been worthy of such punishments in League games even then. Now that it has been reduced to something much closer to the level of domestic Cup competitions in most other countries where association football is to the fore, refereeing rules and norms are much more as they would be in any other game. Generally speaking, the Europeanisation of the game - now, alas, threatened - has meant that players cannot get away with what they once could. But one of the last great examples of this - the idea that it was so special, so quasi-formal, that normal rules of discipline didn't apply - was Roger Milford's failure even to book Paul Gascoigne for his foul on Garry Parker (described in a report which I think comes from the Daily Telegraph at the time as "straight out of the manual of kick-boxing") early in the 1991 final. Let us imagine that he had been booked and, knowing that a second yellow card would get him sent off, he hadn't then fouled Gary Charles, the foul that kept him out of the game for a year and from which, along with a second lengthy injury during his time in Italy, he would never fully recover.
As a consequence Gascoigne remains a sharper and better player, converts *that* chance in the Euro 96 semi-final and England then win the tournament. As a consequence, the general attitude in England - especially among the working class who voted disproportionately for Brexit - towards mainland Europe, and especially Germany, becomes calmer, more comfortable, more at ease, fewer hang-ups, less of a sense of being humiliated and out of their depth in their company (this is also a central facet of 1970 counterfactuals, of course, and I can easily buy the argument that they're believable in that context but not after Thatcherism and Heysel and the Sun have already happened; I'm just trying to create an equivalent where I can actually remember the PoD myself, even if older posters will say, possibly correctly, that it was already too late). But as a consequence, the general mood in Blair's early years in power (one writer in Melody Maker suggested in mock-terror that the Tories might win a fifth term if England won Euro 96, but that was clearly never going to happen - Labour had easily won the "patriotic battle" and, even if Blair was a good deal posher than Major, and that posh education wasn't even in England, Blair would have been taken far more seriously and seen as far more convincing associating himself with such a success than Major would have been) is a good deal more attuned and inclined towards joining the single currency. As a consequence, Blair is able to win - however narrowly - a referendum for joining the euro, and although this obviously becomes massively unpopular post-2008, the UK is effectively locked into the EU through its membership of the single currency so can never practically leave.
Or is all this - even assuming that a yellow card would have calmed Gascoigne's head in that match - ASB? Certainly, I don't think England would have had Euro 96 on a plate had they won the semi-final; I can easily imagine a 2004 situation happening where the sheer pressure of the moment would have got to them, and the Czech Republic (for whom it was also an anniversary year of their only major title, even if part of the country that had won in 1976 had since seceded) could have been Greece to their Portugal.
But then, there's a convincing argument that one man typing "legitimate" when he meant "illegitimate" - the sort of mistake we all make when tired or busy - changed the result of the 2016 US election ...
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