Marcus Mumford on Missing David Beckham’s Wonder Goal, AFC Wimbledon’s Rebirth, and England's World Cup Future: Men in Blazers 02/27/26

10:23Marcus Mumford:There you go. Look, I was still in denial about being an artist back then.

10:29Rog:do you really feel that way it's making music temporary but fandom if you want is permanent

10:35Marcus Mumford:no I've changed my view on that and I think it's good to be able to change your mind no don't correct the record I said that then and I've changed my mind since and that's fine but no I think they're both lifestyle choices and I think they're both parts of identity

10:49Rog:big year to be a football fan it's quite stressful because for loads of reasons we're gonna get into all of them I think I know what you're talking about I do I do I do but I want to talk about you as a footballer and by the way I love what you just said you can argue life is really just arguing with yourself

11:06Marcus Mumford:yeah and I think there should be shame around being able to change your mind I would love a lot of people in the world to change their minds right now and I think so I'm gonna model it right now and say I've changed my mind on that quote

11:18Rog:but it's not even correcting the record the two statements can live

11:22Marcus Mumford:and should live yeah multiple things can be true at once yeah

11:24Rog:You recently talked about multiple things. It's going to be true. I'm now terrified to think of every quote. This interview may melt down. Here we go. Your research is so well done. And I'm going to just disagree with everybody.

11:36Marcus Mumford:Does this guy have any integrity?

11:38Rog:He's a great interview, but his values are rock bottom. You told The Guardian, your greatest achievement. Oh, God. What did I tell The Guardian? I was being named football player of the year, 4th 11th, which I just love. Absolute truth.

11:50Marcus Mumford:Truth. Absolute truth. I need to know. It was the only statue on display in my house for a long time. Fourth 11. Fourth 11. Yeah.

11:59Rog:Just explain what that is, the fourth 11 to the Americans.

12:02Marcus Mumford:That's the fourth team down in the class. Yeah. So our class had four teams.

12:08Rog:So America, it's like varsity, junior varsity, keep going down to more levels. Fourth. Fourth 11. Fourth 11. Yeah. But what a season. Still talked about in all over South London. Tell us about it. Tell us what it was about, man. It's beautiful, man.

12:20Marcus Mumford:I play absolutely blinding schoolyard football and then put studs on my feet and get me on a muddy pitch with a much harder ball and I was rubbish. I was like 11 a side. It's a shin pads that inhibited you. I don't know what it was. I just like all my skills because, you know, it's like, I don't know, going from futsal to 11 a side or something. It was like that. But anyway, there I was in the fourth 11. I got better actually, but there's no shame around it. And getting player of the year in the 4th 11 was my basically my position were we well we were in the 4ths you're moving around a lot aren't you trying to find somewhere you're boxed the rocks

12:59Rog:you're boxed the rocks you know yeah

13:02Marcus Mumford:I was playing in central midfield I think a lot yeah

13:05Rog:I'm not but you weren't inhibited by tactical systems no you weren't a systems player no exactly I was saying there is a beauty to what you're saying I do think this because the beauty of football is no matter what level you play I can still remember goals I scored in consequence when I was 11 like as if they were some of my most powerful memories about the 4th 11 season of seasons like there are moments great tackles you made incredible shots that eluded the goalkeepers grasping it that you can remember as beautifully as something that happened last year

13:37Marcus Mumford:yeah I played a game with you know it was like a multi-generational game in our local community at home recently you know there's anything from seven-year-olds up to like 60-year-olds. And it was the first like integrated multi-generation game of football I played. And it was in one of those sports halls, you know, with a really springy wooden floor. The best. And I scored three absolute worldies against a seven-year-old. You know, and I've got no shame around that.

14:10Rog:Marcus Mumford, hear my name. Did you point to the back of your shirt? Yeah, I like tops off. Like, oh.

14:16Marcus Mumford:That was great.

14:17Rog:I'll take the yellow card. By the way, I love that. Multi-generation. I believe the power of football is the multi-generational memories that allows us to mate, which we'll touch upon in a moment.

14:29Marcus Mumford:But it's important. Yes, it's important for community development and connection and all that. It's also important that you can allow yourself to score some absolute worldies in those scenarios, right? And I remember... Seven-year-olds need to learn.

14:46Rog:They need to learn. It's a competitive war.

14:49Marcus Mumford:We were in, man, this is a wild one, but I was in Central African Republic. I worked with an organization called Children in Conflict. We worked with kids in conflict zones, and we were with 12 ex-child soldiers who were being rehabilitated. We were out in the jungle, basically, outside of Bangui. Take a UN plane up to a place in the bush, and these guys came in, and my French is not very good, right? So we were trying to sit down in this room and talk about their lives and their needs and we're with the War Child staff who are all local and amazing and my broken French is not working very well.

15:22Marcus Mumford:And these kids, you know, they're not really opening up, which is very understandable. So we had this idea that we'd go outside and just kick a ball around for half an hour. And we did. And I did score two absolute worldies. And then we went back into the same room and suddenly like they were like completely open and ready to talk. And the power of football is, yeah, it's an amazing thing. You'd nutmegged, you'd penanked, you'd done them.

15:46Rog:You've shown them. But it's important, even in scenarios like that, to play competitively.

15:50Marcus Mumford:And remember the moments of glory.

15:52Rog:By the way, I will say, Tim McConaughey, God love him. When he's come on the show, his line is, he always says, football is the greatest invitation in the world. Like any language, any age, all of this.

16:02Marcus Mumford:In that way, I think it's really close to music. And that's why I love both of them. Like they're really great levelers. And they're very, yeah, invitational. Connectors, memory makers, all of that. ancient languages basically of connection and that's all it's really about it's just human connection

16:19Rog:when you've gone and watched Everton as much as I have you learn a lot about ancient language

16:23Marcus Mumford:my father-in-law is in Everton is he really? yes he's in ticket holder God bless him loves the new stadium he does Jackie Grealish came to our show in Manchester he did? yeah and man he was so nice he's such a sweet wonderful human being he came back with his partner and they were on their date night and he was being very well behaved and stuff and I'm not sure he's always well behaved but He came back and he was so sweet. He sent us a voice note on the way. I'd never met him before and sent us a voice note on the way of him singing Little Lion Man at the top of his lungs. And he came and he brought Gav a city shirt and he brought my father-in-law a signed Everton shirt, which he's now hung up in his house next to his Wayne Rooney signed Everton shirt.

17:05Marcus Mumford:Christmas presents, absolutely nailed it.

17:07Rog:I bet you it smells amazing.

17:09Marcus Mumford:Yeah, it was match warm as well.

17:10Rog:And I love your father-in-law. Shout out to him at the Hill Dickinson. every week you can now be miserable in much more luck surroundings. It's amazing you're an Everton fan. But I want to talk about your football fandom. You grew up in Wimbledon, southwest London, being a lifelong fan. First of Wimbledon FC.

17:26Marcus Mumford:Lifelong is probably not quite true because I grew up as a Manchester United fan.

17:30Rog:We're going to get to that too.

17:32Marcus Mumford:Your brother. Yeah, six years older.

17:35Rog:So lifelong, I'm on the record as saying that it's been corrected. You can live two truths. Yeah, right. Yeah, change is okay. The World NFC are a fascinating club because they were the rare club in England who did something that's very common in America, but it never happens in English football. 2002, when you were 15, they did a Baltimore Colts. They just moved, lifted up, moved to Milton Keynes. This is a soul scarring narrative. What did that feel like for you as a teen in the moment?

18:01Marcus Mumford:Yeah, it's hard. I think difficult or challenging for Americans to understand how size, it never happened before in football in the UK. and you know these teams are ancient by american standards right and so they just up and sold it down the river to a city well i'm not really going to call it that a town outside of london if you know england okay yeah outside of london a new town yeah it was built after the second world war and they sold it and so the fans of wimbledon protested chained themselves to buses outside the courts and said, we want to set up our own club if you're going to do this.

18:42Marcus Mumford:And the FA at the time said it was against the wider interests of football to set up an original, you know, fans club owned by the fans. And they did anyway in 2002. Supporters trust. And climbed the football ladder, which you can do in the UK. Again, it's hard to understand in the States.

19:00Rog:Had to start in the ninth level.

19:01Marcus Mumford:Like you and I both would have got in the first teams, you know. It was like Sunday league. I'm a girl wouldn't actually

19:07Rog:it was Sunday league and and it climbed up

19:10Marcus Mumford:and up and up and up and

19:11Rog:would have been the Destiners at the back

19:13Marcus Mumford:yeah yeah lovely Noah Kahn just blazing up and down the ring just like never passing he's got some skills anyway so now AFC Wimbledon have leapfrogged Milton Keynes and we don't call them the D-O-N-S word they all I mean if the BBC like they should have their own club that town right it's totally fine to have their own club and at this point I'm of the view that if they removed the word Dons from their title. And if the BBC started calling them Milton Keynes and not M-K-D-O-N-S, which I refuse to say, then I think eventually enough water would...

19:48Rog:If they remove the name, you just hate them and not want to obliterate them from the biblical record.

19:52Marcus Mumford:And so it's like, and we'd now leapfrogged them, right? So they're in League Two and we're in League One.

19:57Rog:I mean, life, nature is healing. But in that moment, there was enough trauma for probably at least one Mumford & Sons album probably two that's right

20:06Marcus Mumford:that's what most of the songs are about

20:08Rog:yeah ultimately everybody's looking for like the theological underpinnings it's all just about MK Dons what have you done to my heart my soul my community I want to get back to the Wimbledon story

20:20Marcus Mumford:first charity fundraiser we ever played was for AFC Wimbledon correct yeah did you have that in your research no I may have done

20:26Rog:I may have been there I did I mean everyone

20:30Marcus Mumford:I remember my brother saying to me like really mate you're in a band bands are supposed to do charity stuff. Yeah. This is your charity stuff. I was like, we're just getting started. We don't want to like spread ourselves too thin. It's just the first of many. But yes, we're starting at the Wimbledon Theatre on Wimbledon Broadway playing a show for FC Wimbledon. You're just, you're just blown up and there you are saving the club. Not saving. No, no, supporting.

20:53Rog:Excuse me. There you go. Listen to that man. Not this man. First professional game you ever went to. Opening day, 1996 season. I love this story. Manchester United against Wimbledon. Legendary match because then just David Beckham, now Sir David, then just 21. I think it was just two haircuts into his career. He scored for the halfway line.

21:14Marcus Mumford:And Beckham saw Sullivan off his line. Oh, that is absolutely phenomenal. God, tell us the story. Yeah, it was the first game at Selhurst Park. And there we were. I was with my mates. I was with my mate and his dad. and we'd just been to go and get chips because I was like eight or something, maybe nine, and they're in my Vinnie Jones shirt, you know, and I was eating my chips and then suddenly heard this like outrageous rule. Like even the Wimbledon fans were cheering. And I was like, what just happened? And they were like, Beckham just scored from the halfway. And I'm like, oh, no, I missed it because I was eating my chips.

21:55Looking down at the chips.

21:57Marcus Mumford:Yeah, which is a real lesson. So like when you go to a football match, what you've got to be able to do is this.

22:03Rog:right learn from life and not this yeah it's true it's like going to missing dylan going electric because you were trying to get your parking validated yeah yeah these moments in life saw a match today though you did that's all that matters absolutely world that's all that matters and the chips can you give them they were excellent chips to be fair we win and we win yeah you tell me you're a manchester united fan early on in life your brother james supported So the older brothers have that heavy influence. I do want to ask you, watching Manchester United roar again. You know, this is a team that have been like a Grey Gardens.

22:37Rog:You know, currently, as we sit here, fourth under Michael Carrick, who's done for them, I guess. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. It's really amazing. It's like watching Rick Rubin take Johnny Cash into the studio. It's like that. That's beautiful.

22:48Marcus Mumford:I love that.

22:49Rog:How do you experience that?

22:51Marcus Mumford:Well, you know, I still, you can't deny your childhood, right? So I still have a massive soft spot. I'd say they're my second team right I still have a massive soft spot for Manchester United and it's fun to have a team that you kind of root for in the Premier League so I'm quite I always want them to do well some people just never want them to do well right and some people never want to see Chelsea do well or whatever it is I always want to see Manchester United do well because I think a good Manchester United is good for our nation that's my view so and good for football good for the wider interests of football a bit like AFC Wimbledon it's the only thing

23:27Rog:holding democracy together.

23:28Marcus Mumford:At times, yeah. Yeah. And so I want to see him do well. And so I'm excited.

23:38Rog:Have you ever considered how your life would be different if you'd be different, if you'd remained a Manchester United supporter? I used to wonder when my dad, often he'd be like, if we were Liverpool... My opportunities in the... If we wouldn't, we would have won things, we would have been happier, but we would have been very different. We'd be awful. That's his thinking. We'd be awful people.

23:58Marcus Mumford:that's really funny um no i mean i get to i get to have my cake and eat it then i get to do the grassroots thing with wimbledon which i absolutely love and i also get to follow a team with interest in the premier league which i think you have to be able to do if you're if you're not because like you can't watch afc wimbledon games when you're in the states which we are a lot you can watch united games so it's nice being able to follow something and have some emotional attachment in the Premier League. I just wish that one day Wimbledon would get there.

24:29Rog:I want to talk about that. That would be rad.

24:30Marcus Mumford:So if Wimbledon played Manchester United, that would be easy for me, obviously. But it's just for now, at least, until we make it into the Premier League. That road might be quite tricky.

24:42Rog:Wrexham are doing it. When you watch that, you're like, that could be us, that should be us. How do you feel about that?

24:47Marcus Mumford:No, I think it's great. I think it's very admirable what they've done. I think it's sweet. but money talks in football you know and they're able to get a lot of investment and you know I don't know people will argue about the effect of money in football for the rest of time I imagine but for now at least you know they're doing they're doing they're doing really well I think it's cool

25:10Rog:I think it's joy to so many human beings who deserve joy it is incredible

25:14Marcus Mumford:and the show's really funny and the marketing's really funny

25:17Rog:they're incredible and the joy have you had them on here we've had them on many many times and gone to games and seen the joy they're bringing to human beings. It is an incredible story in its own right. But the Wimbledon story, which I do want to stay on, you've talked about, I mean, the supporters trust. It is an incredible story. It's very existence. It's honestly all that's good about the game. Our friend, the author, John Green, got involved with them for a decade now. He sponsors the shorts. There's the stadium, part of the stadium.

25:44Marcus Mumford:Sponsored by War Child, which is Children in Conflict as well. Miles Jacobson's very key in that whole thing. I mean, all of you

25:49Rog:are finding ways to partner with the club, invest in the club, lift the club, be lifted by the club. You played the charity gig.

25:57Marcus Mumford:Yeah, and they did this very cool thing where they effectively sold bonds to the fans at variable interest rates. This is all quite geeky. I'm not very good at this. But you got to choose your interest rate. And the average interest rate that the fans chose was the lowest one, which is really cool. So the fans effectively loaned the club an enormous amount of money to help finish the stadium. That's what we've done. No one gets like a bigger piece of any pie or anything like that. It's a very interesting model. It's quite a German model, but I don't understand the business enough to know how the German clubs like lever up and how you do that without compromising the values of the club.

26:37Marcus Mumford:Because the values of the club, just give us a blast.

26:39Rog:The values of the club are quite remarkable, even in life in general, but especially within football.

26:46Marcus Mumford:Yeah, and I guess it started as a sort of resistance movement. That was very much motivated by, created by fans. And so the idea of someone coming along to make money from that or inflate their egos from that wouldn't line up with the... So if you just had some very, very wealthy owner who came in and bought, you know, bought a lot of the club or the majority of the club, it just wouldn't work because the identity of the club is so rooted in the community and the fan-owned model. It wouldn't exist without that model. So I think, but I think it's a tough spot because it's hard to do this. I mean, they're amazing people.

27:29Rog:They have climbed and it has been irresistible watching them. But Fasso, you've already hit it. I was going to ask you, would you like them to be a Premier League team or is that not the point of your fandom?

27:39Marcus Mumford:I would, but I'm probably a sellout, right? Most people probably are happy. But I mean, yeah, I'd like them to be a Premier League team.

27:46Rog:What deal would you make? What would you give up?

27:48Marcus Mumford:That's what I don't understand. I don't understand the business well enough. And I couldn't speak to that. Luckily, there's great people involved in the club still. And Ivor Heller has been very key to the whole thing. You should interview him. He's wicked. He was the one chaining himself to, you know, fences. And right at the beginning, he helped with the creation club. But obviously, it was a team effort. Lots of people involved. But Ivor, I have known for a long time. I really love that.

28:15Rog:It's been beautiful watching you pass on the support to your kids. You took your daughter to her first game last spring. It just happened to be Wembley, the playoffs. Wimbledon beat Walsall 1-0, one promotion back to Leibov. She was like, this is great. I was like, it's not normally like this. Wembley, Wembley, yeah. I mean, there's a saying about English football that ultimately English football is just a tradition of parents and children, which is a profound story about, you know, passing on memories to your kids, which I love. Can you put into words, what was it like to share that memory with him?

28:46Marcus Mumford:Yeah, it was pretty special. You know, and like having a little bit of getting a little bit of access to observing the loutish abandon that you get at football games that I think at times historically has been associated with aggression and all sorts of terrible things, honestly. But there's a beautiful side that is within it as well. right like getting on the shoulders throwing pints that kind of stuff so we we got a little bit involved just enough that we're safe and not and irresponsible but like just to see it like when i travel with england away fans getting to be part of that as long as it feels inclusive and it's a very thin line right because football fans historically have definitely got carried away in lots of ways and still do right as we as we've as we've seen recently like in really horrible ways but there is a beautiful communal abandon that can be accessed i think safely through football and this is my argument at least to my wife which is like this can be cool and then when it's not cool you say so and you get out right that's i mean there's points were thrown but there was a

29:59Rog:line we knew there was like we were just over like nice well i went to i went to i went to nice

30:05Marcus Mumford:when we lost to Iceland. Do you remember that game?

30:08Rog:Still can't quite fathom how that happened.

30:10Marcus Mumford:I remember the stupid songs. That was when that chant came about. Don't take me home. Please don't take me home. I just don't want to go to work. I want to stay here. Drink all the beers. Please take me home. And that was when that first materialised. That year rose.

30:26Rog:That's a B-side on the next one.

30:29Marcus Mumford:But I remember standing in the streets and there's just a comedy element to England fans, I think, sometimes. that is so beautiful. And there's an abandoned, like people climbing on top of police cars, bouncing them up and down and being like, way to the coppers. But in a way that's like, at least what I witnessed was like, as soon as it got to the line, they stepped back and everyone smiled and walked away.

30:52Rog:That was not a rocket up my anus. Yeah, exactly.

30:57Marcus Mumford:But it was the same, honestly, in Moscow when I went to the Croatia game, man. and I'd tick it's the final if we'd won. And it was the same singing God Save the Queen on the subway in Moscow in 2018. I reckon I might be the last of our generation ever to do that, right? After the last semifinal. Before, on the way there, we were all singing. On the way back, we were all trying to avoid getting fights with the Croatians, and I narrowly avoided it. And then I was with the BBC guys, actually, and Linneker was very sad. Shearer was still, you know, Shearer. He's always unrelentingly Shearer. And then Jürgen Klinsmann explained to me why we lost that game.

31:38Marcus Mumford:And that was a low point. Normally Jürgen Klinsmann is because you're English. That was a low point. That's all he says. Because you're English. Yeah. No, we talked a lot about wingbacks. Also because you're English. I want to talk about the World Cup.

31:50Rog:You are starting a world tour in April. You're going to stretch the next six months, three continents. You're going to be in the United States during the World Cup. how convenient it's 106 days away first of all you were seven years old 1994 when the men's world cup was last here yeah I had a t-shirt what was your earliest world cup memory by the way

32:10Marcus Mumford:in fact I think it might be one of my first actual memories was 1990 I remember my brother crying because Gaza was crying when he got that booking

32:23Rog:in the semi-final

32:24Marcus Mumford:in the semi-final which we lost anyway

32:25Rog:on penalties

32:26Marcus Mumford:and when Stuart Pearce missed wasn't it and uh i remember so i don't remember i remember watching bits of the game but i'm sure that memories of watching seeing highlights from that game since have affected that but i really remember my brother crying good to be forged in pain and trauma at the very beginning well this is what i was trying to explain to people like these semi-finals really hurt man

32:47Rog:they really hurt more than england just crapping out on penalties just as a footnote to the tournament yeah yeah they are really painful because their sisyphus has almost got the rock

32:59Marcus Mumford:up the hill yeah and then just rolls down his toes and i mean my dad remembers 66 but like we haven't got anything like that to carry us through you know but we we've got like 1990 98 we've got 2000 oh yeah every every every time yeah i mean i've got a book of english um the

33:20Rog:history of the modern English World Cup it's called uh it's called 40 years of shite which is one of my one of our favorite um history titles of all time that's funny I did notice this that you don't have shows scheduled on the three days in June when England play their group matches

33:35Marcus Mumford:because I was really nervous about this right and historically we've narrowly avoided some real errors but we've been very clear with our team and we had to book these shows management agents the guys that put the shows promoters and we booked these shows before they announced who was playing when and then we delayed it a bit so that we made sure and i sat the whole team down no no

34:06Rog:joke i sat the whole team down multi-million dollar enterprise with hundreds of workers

34:09Marcus Mumford:and families attached to this thing.

34:11Rog:Hold on, guys.

34:13Marcus Mumford:Almost 600 ,000 tickets on sale. And I sat the whole team down and I said, if you double book us on an England night when England are playing, everyone is fired. Not just like one person will take the hit. Everyone's fired if we have to play when England are on.

34:29Rog:By the way, everything you're telling me is completely irrational. Because priorities, I mean, people laughed

34:32Marcus Mumford:and I was like, no, no. Just charming. No, no, stop laughing. This is very serious. so we just try and make sure that we don't play when England are playing

34:41Rog:we've hit the nucleus there's a point in England in the modern period it's a bit like being Charlie Brown trying to kick a football which Lucy's holding I mean can you point into your own words that experience it feels like this team you love it all the more they've come ever closer but they seem to hurt you in ever more traumatic ways

34:57Marcus Mumford:I don't know if they actively hurt us they just feel like at the big moments they let us down and that's I mean it's got to be something to do with the fact that the English Premier League is the best league in the world and the most seen and the most popular and the highest paid and all that. And the pressure that comes with that, if you're in the English national team to represent, it must be, I cannot imagine what that kind of pressure is. And so, there must be something there. One day, there's going to be a team that overcomes that pressure and wins a World Cup.

35:32Rog:When I watch them, I think of your lyric, these days of dust, which we've known will blow away with this new son. They just need to win one

35:38Marcus Mumford:in our lifetime and all is forgiven.

35:42Rog:I mean, just one. Your tour calendar conveniently stops before the semifinals take place. Marcus, what in your heart do you believe is going to happen to Thomas Tuchel's side? What gives you the most hope? I think it,

35:53Marcus Mumford:I honestly think it all depends on Jude Bellingham. I really do. And I wanted to ask your view on this, but I think it all hinges on Tuchel's relationship with Bellingham. Because if they can settle that down and they can work well together, because at the moment there's definitely people that believe that the team is better without Bellingham in it for whatever reason. I don't know the guy and I, you know, you hear rumors about behavior and attitude and you definitely see body language, right? My hope is that Tuchel can like almost pass to him into a place of confidence and humility within the team because he is the best player in the team.

36:32Marcus Mumford:I think he's best player in the world and we've had, we have him and he's, and he's in the English side. And that is unbelievably exciting as long as it works. And if they fall out or if Bellingham falls out with the rest of the team, I think we're f***ing.

36:45Rog:I'm seeing, I mean, I don't support England. I'm as American as Kenny Powers now. But I am, you know, they've come so bloody close. I'm smelling like an 86-minute Dominic Carver-Lewin winner in the final. Wow. God bless. I'm calling it now. Play the tape when it happens and you'll know that that is prophecy. That is Rod Stradamus. If we're living in a world where England have finally won a World Cup, can you put that into words? I can't possibly put that into words. You could, but I can't. It's like Ghostbusters, like dogs and cats living together. I can't imagine what it would do for England, the sense of self.

37:18Rog:There is in the DNA, we don't win. We're not winners. But we're winners. There's an academic cognitive dissonance.

37:25Marcus Mumford:It would be totally life-changing. And do you know what I'm also quite excited about is taking back the St. George's Cross.

37:35Rog:Explain that.

37:36Marcus Mumford:Oh, that's a complicated one to explain. But the St. George's Cross is the red cross on the white background, which is the English flag, which has over the last few years been associated with the far right because they whip it out in order to, I don't know, it's a sort of anti-immigrant kind of display. And it breaks my heart because that's my football flag. And I really am looking forward to reclaiming that flag as an English football flag, which I think we should be proud of. But at the moment, if you fly that flag, people think you're a racist. And it f***ing bums me out. So I'm very much looking forward this summer to reclaiming our flag, to stand for the inclusivity that it should.

38:21Rog:We just had Vagnamora here in that very seat. And he talked about how the Brazilian football jersey, the yellow and green, which he loves, has been taken over. He wants to reclaim that. I mean, there's a lot of reclaiming football.

38:33Marcus Mumford:Flags don't mean a ton, I think. They maybe don't mean as much as they used to to a lot of people. But for sports, national flags in, you know, moments like this at the World Cup, they're really important things, you know. A whole lot of reclamation possibly going to be going on. Reclaim it.

38:55Rog:I do need to touch on this. You were born in the United States, born in Southern California. You describe yourself quite beautifully as an undercover American citizen. I mean, you've toured back and forth across this country. You know it so bloody well. I mean, you're opening 2008 for Laura Marling, I think, when I first saw you in the Barriery Ballroom, which is amazing. Were you there? I'd forgotten that you were there. It's kind of amazing. You're not bad either, man. Do you have any sense of how our boys, the American team, will do? No, I don't really.

39:20Marcus Mumford:I don't. I've got no idea but imagine if they did better than England

39:27Rog:bite your arm off yikes that'd be like Wimbledon being above the Milton Keynes Donnies America put a man on the moon we invented the croonet we've only ever won one men's knockout game in World Cup history that's wild

39:43Marcus Mumford:I think after this summer I think maybe not in time for this summer but after this summer I think it's going to be a massive thing for football here. There's a fourth season of Ted Lasso coming as well. When you put those things together, you're dominating the airwaves. I mean, when you put those three things together, I'm optimistic for football in America. So I think it will.

40:06Rog:This has been a time of challenge for so many. There's still so much darkness in the world that can stretch shadows across even the brightest moments. I've got to ask, in this divided, complicated world, is this World Cup still capable of bringing us together?

40:21Marcus Mumford:I think it's the great opportunity for football to bring people together. I think the opportunity of inclusion and community and experiencing different cultures in really beautiful ways, there's no better opportunity than a World Cup for that. But we'll have to see how it goes. I really, really hope it's a massive, massive success and truly reflects the nature of this nation that I know and you know from traveling around it so much that is one overwhelmingly in my view of generosity, imagination and curiosity and being able to welcome people. Like that's the story of the idea of America. So if it's not matched this summer, then something's gone really wrong.

41:09I think.

41:10Rog:Amen. Amen. By the way, I don't ask so much. Just have Tracy Chapman play the halftime show at the final, acoustic. Sick. It's the only way. Yeah, that'd be wild. Last question for you, Marcus. You recently said something quite beautiful on the View from a Bridge show. I'm just going to read it. Oh, God.

41:26Marcus Mumford:I might have changed my mind since then.

41:28Rog:Yeah, it was last week. You said this. People inspire me most at the moment are people with the capacity for moral imagination. They're able to put themselves in someone else's shoes because, of course, you can't live someone else's experience. but you can be proximate. You can make the effort, listen to their stories because really we're all just walking stories and all of us just want to be heard in some way. I love that so very much. I should have put, and when I woke up at the end of it, actually.

42:00Marcus Mumford:Then it would have been.

42:01Rog:That is. Yeah, it's good. But I do think the secret of life is in there somewhere. Empathy. How do we do more of it? What is the secret?

42:10Marcus Mumford:I mean, I don't know any better than you. or anything, but one of my thoughts on it or ideas would be listening to people better and hearing people better. Because I think when you listen to someone's story, you bring dignity to their humanity. And so I think being able to be quite intentional about sitting down and listening to someone, particularly someone you disagree with, and having the capacity to hear them out is a really powerful tool. And it's a really hard thing to do.

42:39Rog:The hardest thing to do, I think.

42:41Marcus Mumford:Yeah. I think it probably is like a privileged position to be in, to be able to sit down and listen. It does feel like that's really hard for a lot of people to do for loads of really wonderful reasons, I think. So I do think if we have the privilege to be able to sit down and listen to people we disagree with and hear them out, that might unlock some of that.

43:05Rog:Marcus, to you, your band, your album, the beautiful prize fighter to your football club, to listening. Thank you, man. Thank you, Rog. Courage.