For the first time on home soil in 634 days, here is Jerusalem 🏴
GOOSEBUMPS.#ENGvNZ pic.twitter.com/9lwHkvYnSe
— England’s Barmy Army (@TheBarmyArmy) June 10, 2021
Just before 11am yesterday, my son and I sang Jerusalem with around 5,000 over souls in the Eric Hollies stand at Edgbaston. We then watched a great day’s cricket safe in the knowledge we were Covid free and here to have fun.
Stand up – if you love the darts- beer pong- hat-style @Edgbaston pic.twitter.com/wQx3F553ZI
— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) June 11, 2021
There will be people who will complain this is too soon and irresponsible, but the work done by Edgbaston to make sure no-one got into the ground without evidence of a lateral flow test in the previous 24 hours was exemplary.
And as the day wore on the goose bumps continued.
The beer snakes were long, the queues for beer were short. Gareth Southgate got us all on our feet/
And we sung for what seemed hours the same refrain.
I just don’t want to go to work pic.twitter.com/CvpVESN6Zc
— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) June 11, 2021
We didn’t want to go home , we didn’t want to go to work. We just wanted to stay at Edgbaston.
As my son and I drove home, I sang to myself that line from Dylan’s Vision of Johanna.
“the Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiled”.
But at least for a day, we had experienced what salvation must be like.
