If England have lacked anything these past decades, these many years of hurt, it’s a culture of cold, hard winning. With that in mind we should certainly spare a thought for one of the men who did his bit to help re-establish this neurotic football nation as one that could finally plot its way through a tournament from start to finish, from opening ceremony to trophy.

He is one of our own, Paul Simpson, and as England stand on the eve of the Euro 2020 final it must be acknowledged that the progressive, meticulous values now on show in Gareth Southgate’s senior team are not appearing by coincidence, a mere accident of timing or a result of one good bloke with a beard.

They are the result of installing expertise, thought and good people into the national set-up over a period of time. It was in fact Simpson’s England Under-20s who ended the wait since 1966 for an international tournament victory. Carlisle’s former manager is an important link in the chain to Wembley this weekend.

“We want to get away from the fact that everyone says England teams can’t cope with tournaments,” said Simpson, in the hour of his side’s victory over Venezuela in the 2017 U20 final in Suwon, South Korea. “We want to give them the experience so that, in future, we can deal with tournaments and be better at them.”

A few months after enjoying the rare experience of being a trophy-winning England boss, Simpson returned to Brunton Park to share with a business club audience the detail of that campaign. Light was shed onto the kind of micro-planning also in evidence now under Southgate and his cohort.

The amount of preparation for South Korea, Simpson said, had been “incredible”. Schedules were mapped out to the hour, sometimes the minute. There was diligent learning from other sports. Time was devoted to addressing pressure moments in games.

“We tried to understand every single challenge that could come our way,” Simpson said. It was a task that had plainly suited a manager who, at United, was always known for sweating the small stuff.

Simpson’s England set-up in 2017 considered how they’d respond to each scenario in the group stage. They also broke down, for instance, something they did not end up relying on: the “four moments” of emotional examination in penalty shoot-outs: the end of extra-time, the wait in the centre-circle, the walk to the spot and the actual kick itself.

Each aspect was subject to close analysis. It was as clear an example as you like of England being under the command of grown-ups and focused campaigners. That Under-20 squad has not yet provided a glut of senior internationals (Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Dean Henderson were the only 2017 squad members named in the Euro 2020 squad) but it was still crucial to teach the footballing best of this nation at age-group levels that tournament progress was not something that could be left simply to fate.

News and Star: Gareth Southgate's England stand on the brink of Euro 2020 glory (photo: PA)Gareth Southgate's England stand on the brink of Euro 2020 glory (photo: PA)

It was no coincidence too that England’s Under-17s, featuring Phil Foden and led by Steve Cooper, also won their World Cup in 2017. “We are starting to see some real progress in how we work as national junior teams,” said one interested observer that year, name of Southgate.

This, at St George’s Park, was a set-up that was at last interested in the dirty detail of winning, not merely the fantasy of it followed by agonising failure and cue the montage. Success has many fathers while failure is an orphan, the saying goes, but I hope Paul Simpson is still able to reflect with a good amount of satisfaction on his own significant part in this culture shift today.

This is a particular hope at a time ‘Simmo’ has other, serious things to deal with, namely a recent diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma, a form of kidney cancer which has led the 54-year-old to step back temporarily from his coaching role with Bristol City.

We can be encouraged by the tweet posted by Paul’s son Dom that the condition has been “caught early”, and that “Big Simmo” will be back on the sidelines soon. Be in no doubt that that will be his clear intention.

An enforced pause in working life is, though, a chance for the rest of us to revisit this highly significant football man from these parts. As a player Simpson had a dream of a left foot and a fine career which also graced his home-city club with a little veteran-stage magic.

As a manager, let us be clear, he gave us some of the days of our lives, still the last promotions Carlisle have won; an inspirational tenure which lifted a new-era Blues from chaos to hardened, characterful achievement.

Football management, with its joys and traps, took Simpson on a variable journey since Brunton Park, yet it was rewarding to see the spotlight find him again more than a decade on. The game had found an appropriate home for a good and conscientious man who deserves mention now when we talk of the national game’s move into a period of what looks like, and should be described with the strongest accent possible, professionalism.

That this is what England exhibit now feels like a miracle after all the years of anti-climax. It is less that, though, and more the thankful flourishing of proper values and intentions. Here in Cumbria we can be certainly proud that Simmo played his part - and on a weekend of potential national elation, also send him our warmest wishes for the contest worth winning most of all.