Dan Burn spent England’s World Cup downtime at an Ella Langley concert in cowboy hat and boots, and he said he left before the final three songs because of curfew. The England defender, 34, said he and Harry Kane were asked to go, then headed out with the rest of the group while Langley was still on stage.
Burn made no attempt to blend in. He said, “Last night Ella Langley was playing so I had my cowboy hat and cowboy boots on,” adding that he “went and got kitted out.” He was, by his own account, the only one dressed for the occasion. “I was the only person suited and booted with cowboy hat and boots and all the lot,” he said, with a grin that suggested he knew exactly how it looked.
The outing fits the unusual rhythm of an England World Cup break, where training sits alongside short spells of downtime and players look for ways to fill the gaps. Burn also said Harry Kane had a captain’s pick on the record player in the hotel and that there was “a lot of country music” in it, another sign that the mood around the squad had drifted well away from the pitch for a few hours.
But the night was not quite complete. Burn said the group had to leave before the end to make curfew, and he missed the last three songs. “We missed the last three songs because we had to be back for curfew which I was a bit gutted about because they are her three best ones,” he said. It is the sort of small disappointment that only matters because the rest of the story is so unexpected: a World Cup player, in full cowboy gear, leaving a country concert early because duty still came first.
Burn’s relaxed night out also sits alongside other off-field moments from the break. He, Kane and Djed Spence had already gone to watch the Kansas City Royals, and Thomas Tuchel later threw the ceremonial first pitch in the game against the St Louis Cardinals. Burn has said before that a World Cup can mean long stretches of waiting as much as action, recalling that he spent the last tournament in an Airbnb in Newcastle while his house was being renovated.
That is why this concert story lands now. It is a glimpse of how Burn and his teammates are spending the hours between matches, and it suggests England’s downtime is being used as much for country music and baseball as for recovery. The only unresolved detail is the one Burn left hanging himself: who, exactly, arranged the Ella Langley trip. For now, the answer is only that someone did, and Burn was happy to go along with it.
