The funniest memes and moments after England's semi-final victory (2024)

Ollie Watkins' last-gasp winner against the Netherlands in the semi-final of the Euros sparked jubilant scenes among England fans.

The tensions weren’t only high inside the stadium, with 21.6 million viewers watching the nerve-racking match on TV, too.

The victory was greeted, as most things are, with customary humour - both online in terms of memes and funny moments - but also on the streets with, in one instance, dozens of fans serenading a bus in south London bound for 'Bellingham'.

Yahoo News rounds up the funniest moments in the fallout of England's sensational win.

The party atmosphere started before the match, with a video taken in Dortmund providing a heartwarming glimpse of unity between rival fans. Clad in orange, Dutch fans sang ‘Hey Jude’ in harmony with England fans, a moment that has been praised for its display of sportsmanship.

In a video posted to X (formerly known as Twitter), this super-viral video shows a German police officer bearing a striking resemblance to England manager Gareth Southgate, finding himself surrounded by England fans singing “Southgate, you’re the one/Football’s coming home again”.

The officer can be seen laughing in the video, while his colleague saw the funny side and filmed the whole thing, too.

One poster provided a bit of gender balance, gently pointing out that football came home quite recently when the England’s women’s team won the Euros in 2022.

The Dutch also managed to raise a smile in defeat by turning a moment when one of the country's players, Memphis Depay, looked into the camera and posed. One viral post reads: “When your crush is watching the game, and you don't want to give her the ick”.

Rock band the Killers also got in on the action during their concert at the O2 arena. The US group treated fans to the last five minutes on the big screen and, in a a moment of perfect timing, launched into the sing-a-long classic Mr Brightside just as the final whistle blew.

Perhaps the most unexpected moment saw dozens of people descend upon Catford bus garage in south-east London to gather around the number 47 bus (final destination: Bellingham). It's not entirely clear how pleased the bus driver was about it.

Southgate has come in for plenty of criticism in the tournament so far, but this X user was one of many to acknowledge that perhaps the gaffer isn't as bad as many have been making out.

Newly elected prime minister Keir Starmer has responded to the calls of a bank holiday if England were to win, saying: “I don’t want to jinx anything but we must mark it in some way. But the most important thing is getting it over the line on Sunday.”

Starmer, who was at the Nato summit in the US, asked to be updated about how the match was going with notes passed to him by officials as phones were not allowed in the meetings. Some joked about this and started writing doodles on paper.

An edited image of Virgil Van Dijk speaking to the press with Jordan Pickford peaking through also went viral. Some may have been fooled by it, but football fans knew it was fake from Pickford's kit.

Others have already turned their attention to Sunday night's final with an 8pm kick-off, using Andy Murray to highlight the dread of trying to get up the morning after the night before for work. As Andy puts it: "Alright, I'm going to try this but this isn't going to be easy."