The Bancroft Gardens

The most attractive area of tourist town Stratford-upon-Avon used to be the Bancroft Gardens near the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. This was a pleasant green riverside space lined with mature trees. In the endeavour to modernize the town, this area was revamped: this required the removal of many trees, the installation of benches with no back supports and an increase of concrete.

The architectural changes to this area indicate something about the English psyche. The Bancroft is now a starker, functional plot which is reminiscent of reclaimed industrial land from an inner city renovation project. The space is instrumentally designed to accommodate a high number of tourists, so has a hardwearing appearance, characterized by walkways arranged at practical angles and metal benches and railings. The prioritizing of the mechanistic and functional over more haphazard organic development relates to the England football team’s on-pitch organization. The England team has traditionally felt like eleven individuals forced into an inflexible structure. The formation often appears to be a prescription for the parameters of individual activity rather than a flexible framework for collaboration. And whilst mechanistic organization can enable a degree of functionality and defensive security, it is not so facilitative of fluid, attacking play.

The revamped Bancroft Gardens in Stratford-upon-Avon also demonstrate some of the ambivalence felt towards individuality in England. In a neo-liberal society, the individual is triumphed over collective entities such as the family or community. The aspirational individual is the footloose economic unit best suited to servicing a free-market economy. An unfortunate corollary of the primacy of the individual is that notions such as legitimate authority and civic responsibility become undermined. Individuals therefore treat authority and public property with disdain: authority is not perceived to be compatible with individual freedom, and the ownership of public property is intangible. This is one of the reasons why the Bancroft Gardens have been designed in such a fashion. The backless metal benches are vandal-proof, as more pleasing and comfortable designs would end up broken and covered in graffiti.

England also has a problematic stance towards individuals in the national football team: it has often appeared that the individual players come first, with the team merely a contingent outcome. It is almost expected that every player should be a maverick playmaker: this is perhaps why defensive midfield was a neglected position for several years. So whilst the Bancroft Gardens require vandal proof benches to defend against the corollaries of rampant individualism, the England team requires the hard angles of a mechanistic team structure to harness individual proclivities. However, this rigid structure cannot fully accommodate these individuals and if anyone is played out of position they perform like an ill-fitting cog rather than an adaptable professional. The impression had also been fostered that ‘everyone is their own boss’ notions of authority have permeated the England set-up, with personalities such as ‘JT’ and ‘Stevie G’ allowed parity of status with certain managers.

In summary, the installation of backless metal benches, into what was formerly a fine public space, demonstrates why England will probably fail to win World Cup 2010!