England players celebrate reaching the final of the Women’s World Cup. — Photo courtesy of FIFA

Paul Kennedy

There are many studies written by people much more knowledgeable than I am, that suggest as men get older, they start to feel more emotional.

It is claimed that hormonal changes may make ageing men more sentimental, or that as we age, we care less about maintaining a stoic posture.

Regular readers of this column, and I’m aware of at least four, maybe five, won’t be shocked to learn I’m not exactly what you call patriotic when it comes to football.

But maybe, as more grey hairs appear on a daily basis, I’m starting to feel a little different.

I’ve always put my not caring about the national team down to being a ‘northerner’, and in particular, from Liverpool – a city whose inhabitants are generally more anti-establishment than most.

When the men’s England football team play in a big tournament, I’ll obviously support them, but I won’t be losing any sleep when they get knocked out.

I say when, because it's par for the course that England often promise so much but then deliver so little.

During the 2000s, the England team was supposedly the ‘golden generation’. Throughout the decade, they possessed arguably some of the greatest players in football, all at their prime.

Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Michael Owen, Paul Scholes, John Terry and David Beckham, to name just a few.

Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard also played for England at major tournaments during those years and the best they could achieve was reaching quarter-final stages.

Put it simply, they failed, miserably. Over and over again.

You could blame the manager in charge, the system they played, or, without beating around the bush, a massive lack of team spirit.

This was, years later, discussed and confirmed in a great interview you’ll find on YouTube with Lampard, Ferdinand and Gerrard, explaining why in their minds, they did not deliver.

Now it seems England are finally doing the business on the pitch. But it’s not the men’s team, it’s the women’s, who this week secured a place in the final of the World Cup.

Already champions of Europe, England’s women’s team are one game away from global glory.

And I, for one, will be cheering them on come Sunday when they face Spain. Seeing the team celebrate after beating Australia in the semis made me, I’ll admit, feel somewhat emotional and I discovered this strange sense of pride I’ve never felt when watching the three lions.

But now I think the lionesses are changing the way I think about my country. I’ll be rooting for them on Sunday, and I really hope they win.

If they don’t, I think I will probably feel extremely disappointed for the first time at an England loss. Or maybe I’m just getting old. — VNS