The drama of England’s last-gasp win in their opening World Cup match against Tunisia on Monday sparked a wave of exuberant celebrations among fans, many of which were captured and widely shared on social media.
The O2 Academy in Leeds was one of many venues across the country that was not only showing the match on big screens, but was also primed to capture fan reaction from the key moments of the game. They were rewarded with footage of the absolute scenes that followed captain Harry Kane’s 90th-minute winner.
In his post-match interview Kane said he hoped the win had made fans happy “in the pubs”, and multiple videos posted to social media suggested it had. Down the road from Leeds there were also wild celebrations in this bar in Sheffield.
A lot of beer went up in the air in Maidstone in Kent when the goal went in.
Boxpark in Croydon was the site of widely shared footage of celebrations – which included what seems an ill-judged attempt at crowd-surfing about eight seconds into the clip.
Another fan who might be regretting their exuberance this morning is the person who appears to fall through a roof while celebrating – about five seconds into this one.
Fans who had gathered to watch the match at the Times Square fanzone in Newcastle got to share the experience with two England veterans from the 1990 World Cup – Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley spoke to the crowd before the match.
London’s Tottenham Court Road was also a site of celebration after the game, with happy fans obstructing the traffic and flagging down passing cars to join in the celebrations.
The celebrations in Leeds also spilled noisily out on to the street after the final whistle.
The fact that the celebrations were so widespread was underlined as viewing figures for the match emerged. Presenter Gary Lineker tweeted that over 21 million people had watched the match - “18.3m peak on your televisions and more than 3m on iPlayer” -making it the most watched TV programme of the year so far, ahead of the Royal Wedding.
If England keep progressing in the tournament, we can expect to see further scenes – perhaps a little more vibrant than they appear to have been when England actually won the World Cup in 1966.
