'Shouts, screams and tears' as England bows out

Supporters who gathered in pubs, fan parks and homes across the South East said they had hoped this would be the year football finally came home.

Sean Lombard, landlord of the Red Lion pub in Rusthall, Kent, turned his jazz bar into a watch party for customers. He said it had been a night of "shouts and screams, happiness and tears", but England were just "unlucky".

He said: "It's been a good tournament for England."

Matt Richards, who watched the game in Rusthall, said he was proud of the team.

"I think we went a little bit too defensive, but as a whole, the boys throughout the whole tournament did enough," he said. "It's always sad to go out."

"We are knocking at the door," he said. "I think we need that English spirit, that English fight going forward in the next competition, in order to win."

At a fan park in Brighton, Elaine Connolly said the atmosphere was "amazing" after England scored first.

But after the defeat, she felt the same as "everyone else in the UK, absolutely gutted".

"It's been tough, it's a bitter pill to swallow," she said. "We've been here before, we get this far and it just kind of shuts down."

Simon Cook and Terry Baker turned up believing England were going to win, but after watching the team defend a 1-0 lead before Argentina went on to score two late goals, they asked: "Why didn't we just attack?"

Jamie Power, 19, at the Woking FC fan zone in Surrey, said he was "gutted" by the result.

Like so many across the country, he wanted to experience what fans enjoyed when England won the World Cup final at Wembley 60 years ago.

"As a young teenager, I wanted to live the life of what the 1966 people lived up to. Every year, we've got so close," he said.

But he added: "You have to be fair to Argentina, they've played brilliantly. We need to learn from this."

Another supporter watching the match at Woking, Ell Guidera, joked that the defeat would stay with him for some time.

Laughing, he said: "For the rest of July and August, don't talk to me."

He said he expected to recover when the football season started again.

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