News that England’s national team will stay in Prairie Village while training for the World Cup created a stir when it hit in February. But now that the team’s arrival is imminent, England fans and ex-pats are wondering if they’ll have any chance to glimpse their standard bearers in person.
They also say they don’t expect mobs of the team’s supporters — who have a long-standing reputation for, shall we say, passionate revelry — to descend on Johnson County.
The problem is, none of England’s group stage matches take place in Kansas City. Even if the team comes out on top, their knockout games would be in Atlanta, Mexico City, Miami, or the final in New Jersey if they go that far, according to an ESPN sports analysis.
While that would obviously be great news for fans of the Three Lions, as the team is called, it doesn’t do much for local ex-pat fans looking around for player sightings. It also may be a bit of relief for local Prairie Village residents worried about crowds of English fans at local bars or even hanging around the team’s hotel at Meadowbrook.
England’s national team went to Miami first before coming to Kansas City. They were scheduled to play two friendlies. After the last match on June 10, they’re expected to settle in by June 13 at their Prairie Village digs at The Inn at Meadowbrook Inn while they train at Swope Soccer Village in Kansas City, Missouri.
Then they’ll head out once again for group stage games in Dallas, Boston and the New York/New Jersey area.
The rest is yet to be determined. If they make it out of group stage, they could come back to Prairie Village but it would only be for a couple of days before they’d be due for the July 1 Round of 32 in Atlanta.
Daughters of the British Empire are ready for tea time
So far the chance for any public encounters with the team seems limited. Practices at Swope are closed and the facility has reportedly raised the height of its opaque privacy fence surrounding the fields.
Information on any kind of a public welcome also has not been forthcoming. A spokesman for the England team confirmed there would be a “community open training session,” but attendees would be determined by KC2026. When contacted, Lisa Belot of KC2026 said there was a “miscommunication” and she did not have that information. No further clarification has been offered to date.
Lack of information about a team welcome didn’t deter the Daughters of the British Empire in Kansas, though. The DBE is a group whose members have either moved here from England or are related to someone who has. They have 85 members, with the majority of their chapters in Johnson County, says president Heather Dressler, of Kansas City, Missouri.
The group held out hope until recently that they’d be able to bring some kind of treat — possibly shortbread biscuits and real British tea — to the team.
After some unsuccessful attempts to make contact, they found out that the team’s schedule is too tight to allow a meeting, she said.
“We completely understand, as they are here in the U.S. to win the World Cup and that should be their focus! We are all looking forward to cheering them on as they do so!” she said.
But it won’t be a complete disappointment. The DBE will work with the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department to replace the worn flags at the Winston Churchill statue on the Country Club Plaza, “Married Love,” at the corner of Ward Parkway and Wornall Road.
“We wanted the American and British flags to look their best for the World Cup,” she said.
The team has also promised a generous donation to support the charities they support in return for their work providing an afternoon tea and for the staff at Swope Soccer Village.
“It’s kind of secretive”
The tea is set for June 26 at the Kansas City Parks administration offices, and the menu will feature British specialities: scones with jam and butter, egg salad and Coronation chicken sandwiches, shortbread, Cadbury fingers and a fruit tart and cupcake.
But the team’s secrecy has affected even that. As the event planning proceeded, Dressler said there was some difficulty in nailing down how the donation would be paid, since no one would provide the group with a contact email for the team.
“It’s kind of secretive, I guess,” Dressler said. “They just don’t want it to be crazy and get out and I understand that. They don’t know me, they don’t know us.”
The DBE has had some other experience with that. They also wanted to bring shortbread to the cast and crew of Ted Lasso, when it filmed in the Kansas City area last year, but officials were so tight-lipped and contacts so scarce they couldn’t find a way to do it, Dressler said.
“We just wanted to bring a cup of tea,” she said.
The DBE is not exactly a hotbed of soccer fanatics. When the England team is not in town, they do fundraisers for senior living facilities and various fundraisers. Their marquee event is a British Faire and Tea in November.
But this month they’ve made Friction Beer Company in Shawnee their watch party location for the group stages, and Dressler said they’d be bringing British treats along.
Member Brenda Marks of Gladstone was singled out as “resident soccer expert” during a group phone call with the Post, although she quickly clarified that “I’m not an expert,” but watches closely during World Cup play.
She and her family support London’s Tottenham Hotspurs, and she also watches Chelsea because she used to date someone on the reserve team, she said.
Marks was lucky enough to have attended the one and only World Cup won by England. That was in 1966. Marks was at the quarterfinal of that series, where England defeated Argentina, 1-0. England went on to win in extra time against West Germany, 4-2.
“The atmosphere at these games is amazing. The one thing with football games all over Europe and I guess everywhere is they love to chant. They’ve all got a song and they love to sing and wave their scarves. And they just have a grand time,” Marks said.
But Marks, Dressler and DBE member Linda Krupp say that unless serendipity strikes, they have no plans to shill out FIFA prices for matches for that atmosphere at Arrowhead.
Said Krupp, “I’ll probably go to a watch party but I’m not spending $3,000 on a ticket. (Seat Geek prices for the England vs. Croatia match in Arlington, Texas were mostly in four-digits, with highs of $5,000 or $6,000.)
Marks agrees. “I’m probably going to watch it on the telly,” adding, “If you watch on the telly and it gets nail biting you can leave the room.”
Mary Hawkes, a member from Leawood, said she may see a game at a watch party, but will stay away from any Kansas City games because of concerns about traffic.
On the plus side, the high prices will probably deter the kinds of fans that cause trouble in Europe, Krupps said. Soccer hooliganism was one fear expressed by Johnson Countians in an informal Johnson County Post survey a few weeks ago.
“There are some hard core fans in local towns, but they aren’t generally the ones who are going to travel overseas to the World Cup, I don’t think,” she said.
Marks added, “Unfortunately it is the English who have got the bad reputation. But England is not playing here. It’s just training here.”
Brit Boy Street Food owner heading to World Cup
Chris Thomas, an England ex-pat who founded Brit Boy Street Food, agreed the lack of Kansas City games and high prices will deter international fans of the Three Lions.
“English fans are not coming to Kansas City from England. I highly doubt that,” said Thomas. “That being said, there’s a ton of English people here in Kansas City.”
Thomas grew up in the Yorkshire area of England and moved to the U.S. in 2007 to play on a soccer scholarship at a small Tennessee college. He now runs a business selling traditional English food like shepherd’s pies at farmers markets in Lenexa and Overland Park.
His business won’t have a role in providing food for the players. “I’ve been asked quite a lot — what am I doing for the World Cup? Frankly I’m just existing,” he said.
“I know that they are getting their own caterers and they’ll obviously be on strict and very specific controlled diets. They’re not going to be eating in local restaurants and such like that,” he said.
But Thomas has found a way to get to two World Cup games. He’ll be at Argentina vs. Algeria at Arrowhead on June 16 thanks to a friend who had a ticket for him. After that, he’ll make a 500-mile drive to see England vs. Croatia in Texas the very next day at 3 p.m.
Thomas said he’s very curious to see how the attendance goes because of the expense. When he attended a game at Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester, England, home of Manchester United about 18 months ago, he said it cost $120 per ticket and that included a drink after the game.
“So when people have to pay thousands of dollars, I don’t know if people have that type of money, honestly. I think we’ll see quite a few empty stadiums,” he said, adding that the U.S. stadiums are much larger than the average European stadium.
He’s still hoping to see an English win this year.
“Chances are as high as ever, really. It’s just, can we execute on the big stage? We’ve been very close the last eight years in major tournaments and just can’t get over the hump,” he said. But although the team has lost some close games to penalty shootouts, “ we’re always in it.”
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