'IT'S COMING HOME!' | British expats in Florida go WILD ahead of England's World Cup tie with Norway

GB News on the ground here in Florida for the big quarterfinal clash against Norway, but whilst we're here we thought we'd ask why so many Brits, 400,000, are leaving the UK for the Sunshine State. We're here in Fort Lauderdale in the neighbourhood, I believe, a couple of blocks away of Luis Suarez and Leo Messi for Inter Miami to speak to some British expats, particularly some women who have set up a group to support each other, to enjoy friendship, and crack on with the American life in the English spirit. So this is the home of an expat called Helen here, English flags everywhere, proper English spirit, getting ready for the quarterfinal game, England flags all over the door, and because Leo Messi is a few blocks away, apparently she says lots of Argentina fans regularly line the streets with their flags, so she thought she'd give one up to the Argies with these England flags. Let's see if Helen's here. Helen, hello. Hi Ben, how are you? Good to see you, come in. You okay? Love your flags, English spirit. England all the way mate. Hello ladies. So this is your soccer front room, what do you call it? Yeah, living room, soccer grotto. Love that. Just walk us through it, so you've got the big screen here. We've got a projector here, so we've been having watch parties, that sounds very American, but we're having watch parties so a lot of my British ladies crew come round. My kids both play travel soccer, so we have all this football, so we have all the football parents come round, so we do a few parties here, we have the mums and dads and the kids. You've got the big football chairs as well. Yeah, yeah, we put the kids all squash on these, and we have the little rug too for the extra kid. That'll do. Watch Harry Kane lift the World Cup. Well yes, it's coming home. Helen, biggest question, come and introduce me to your friends. Who is the biggest boozer here? Christina. Why is she the biggest boozer? Oh there we go, the Northerners. One from Newcastle here. Jordi as well. Yeah, and Southerners. And this is a British expat group, what do you call it? British women of Broward and Miami Dade. That's a mouthful. Yes it is, say that after a few drinks. Yeah, so it's brilliant because I was living in New York before here, and I've been down here for four years, and I found this group before I moved, and I even reached out to them before I moved down here, and they've been a lifeline. So we all take turns, we meet up for coffees, lunches, evening meals. We love to get together and just talk about all things British and what we miss, and somebody's always just been to the UK, or come back from the UK. Do you bring each other back treats from the UK, as sort of home favourites? We have one of our group homes, a British store just down the road. Nobody's allowed to come to my house and stay without bringing chocolate buttons. And apparently someone said Luis Suarez and Messi are sort of a few blocks away. Miami is a big deal around here, ever since Beckham created the new stadium, and it's very exciting because it's such a minority sport in the US. But what I see, because I live here, all the Argentinian fans, it's really funny, they all line up on the bend, and they all hold the shirts out waiting for Messi to sign them. He's very graceful actually, he actually signs them quite a lot. How important is it for you ladies to have this group, to be able to have someone to meet up with and talk to? Just to hear your own accent. Because you know, working. It's a very amazing connection. It's the sense of humour, we all have the same sense of humour. They don't get the sarcasm do they? Or our obsession with tea. We have like regular events, we all take turns and hold an event, and what's really great, we all bring a dish. So we have some ladies that are brilliant and make sausage rolls, pies, or trifles. It's amazing, so I really stuff my face with all the lovely British food. Why did you all leave the UK for the US? I'll start with the Scouse. Nowhere's better than Liverpool. I met my husband in the Middle East, and we were in the Middle East for five years. My kids were born there, and then we've been in the US ten years. Next week, it was my husband's job, he came home one day and said, I've had a job offer with his existing company to Miami, and I was like, Florida? Oh my God, Florida really? Because it's actually quite hard to move here. And then six weeks later, we were here and that was ten years ago. My boys have never known anything different, they're just American through and through, but home is a little corner of England. You do miss food, Greggs, M&S, fish and chips. What about you? Well, we moved to the United States with my job, so I'm a little bit different in many ways, because I've moved around the world a lot. I was working for an American company in Belgium actually, and then they gave me a promotion and said, do you want to come? And it took my husband five minutes to go, oh yeah. So my husband will say, he's a stud, spouse trailing under duress, but then it adds an S successfully. I've been here 40 years. 40? Are you the OG, you're the veteran? I've been here a long time. I came here when I was 16 years old on vacation to visit my uncle, and I went home and I told my mum and dad, there's no way in hell I'm living here anymore. I'm going back. I'm going back and I'm going to live. So my husband, he went for his interview for his green card, and I remember the day till it was yesterday. I was walking in the house that I was staying, wondering, is he going to get the job or not? I mean, get the green card. And until he got the green card, I didn't say yes. Until he got it? Yeah. That's love. Does he know that, or is he finding out now? Oh no, no. He knows it. He knows it now. What's your husband's name? Shushil. Shushil? Yes. Sorry, Shushil. I've been here 42 years. And I came when I was young by myself. I wanted out of England. It was grey. It was cold. It was miserable. Yeah. Why did you want out? Just for the weather, particularly? Yeah. And I actually wanted to go to Australia, but they closed the doors at that time and they wanted certain people. So I was in the middle of interviewing. My father died suddenly when I was 21. So I thought, I'd better stay a couple more years with my mum. So I did. And then when I reapplied, that was it. I was in college with girls that changed to nursing degrees because they really wanted to go to Australia. But anyway, I came here by myself. I got married out here. I got two children. I would never go back and live in England. Really? Nothing? But I don't have any family there, so it's a big difference. I'll come around your massive kitchen island here. Someone's earning. I think there's like 400,000 expats in Florida, isn't there? Is that right? There's two little ones over there. Hello. There's Sophie and Lewis. He's got the England top on. Good lad. So what's your story, Helen? How did you end up with a massive kitchen island? I won the lottery. I married Dave now. So we've been here eight years. We were four years in Jersey City, New York, and we've been down here four years. And we came because of my husband's job. So basically he got a promotion and their head office was in New York, so they wanted him to move there. So it was kind of a big decision, but we'd already traveled before. So we lived in Australia for eight years. So I'm from Manchester originally, but we did a year backpacking before we got married. Fell in love with Australia. Ended up getting a job working there eight years. Sophie was born in Australia. Then we were meant to move to America in 2013, and they pulled the pin on that and we got moved to Brighton for five years, which Brighton's awesome, by the way. So I do miss my friends in Brighton and Hove. Lewis was born there in Tunbridge Wells. And then we moved here in 2018, which was quite hard being here in New York during COVID. That was very difficult because the visas that we were on, we couldn't go back and see our family because if we'd have left, we wouldn't have got back in. And it was really hard because my mum got diagnosed with cancer and it was really difficult. So I couldn't go over and it was really hard. So anyway, he then got another promotion down here, hence the big kitchen island. So we've been down here four years. So yeah, that's why I'm in America. So it wasn't somewhere where we woke up and was like, oh, I want to live in America. It just happened. It was just organic and just happened. Would you ever go back to the UK? Anything you miss? I do love Brighton and Hove. I do love Manchester and Liverpool. I really love Manchester and Liverpool in the north. I love London. Sophie's begging me to go. We're going to go back in summer to see grandparents because they're not too well, my husband's parents. And she keeps saying, I want to go to London. I want to go to London. He wants to go and watch Liverpool. So we'll see if they've got a friendly on. Go and watch Arsenal instead. We're the champions. He's got lots of friends who like Arsenal. Are you guys happy here in Florida? Yeah. Yeah. What's your favourite part? The sunshine. Yeah. I was in, um, from the UK. I traveled. I've been to Australia as well, actually. And I'd lived overseas, went back for education and then was in the Bahamas. So, um, now my present husband, 25 years, and we were, he was building a school. Um, I was working in a school, international school, and he was building the Atlantis. And then we came back, his kids were here and we came back and we lived in Georgia, uh, the state of Georgia, which is very different, very different from New York, very different from Florida. And then we went over to Dubai for five years with little kids. And then we came back to here. So Florida, it's like a different country. You say, I think all of the states are different. It's like different countries. The states are different countries. You've been here for many, many decades. I mean, what's your opinion of the UK? I don't know if you watch UK news or anything that's going on. Have you got an opinion on what you see from across the pond? Say, oh, you don't want to go back to England, Chrissy, because it's not the England that you left. But then there's probably people in the US, there are probably people in the UK who are American saying, oh, you don't want to go back to America because it's not the America that you left. You know, things aren't great here. Things aren't great there. Having a group like this, it's wonderful. It's a good point that the UK that we each left is not the one we go back to. Exactly. And, you know, it's like when anybody's an expat, you move and then you think, almost time stops for you, doesn't it? As how you remember it. Oh, absolutely. And then you go back and you realize, oh, that street's different. Or, oh, that shop's gone. And my parents will still call the pubs where they live by their original name, because I don't know the new ones. Kind of feel like I miss out on those friendships and those relationships. You miss out on a lot. I mean, if somebody got married, then you'd go back for a wedding. But you miss out on hendoos, you miss out on birthdays. I miss them. And because of the time difference, you can't always just bring them. Like when you've had a couple of wines on a Friday night, I just want to speak to them and say, oh, I've just watched Ricky Gervais or something. I want to share the joke. And you can't because they're in bed asleep. See you later, ladies. So, Helen, when you're ten gins deep at halftime on Saturday, are you going to be jumping in here? Oh, my God. So if they win, I'm in. If they lose, I'm drowning my sorrows and I'm still in. You're going in either way. Yeah. Oh, it's beautiful. I've not made enough to get one of those. I was going to say, whose boat is that? Is that your boat? My neighbour is actually Mexican, so I'm not. They're good friends, but they're Mexican. Have you spoken to him since the game? Not since the result, but they're very nice. I'm sure he'll get over it with that boat. Does your mum tell you off for playing football down here? I'm here with Helen Sprog, Sophie and Lewis, who are lucky enough to be going to the game in Miami on Saturday. Who's sporting? England, of course. England. What's the score going to be? I don't know. He knows. I have no clue. Go on, Lewis. Give us your big prediction. Three-one. Who's going to score? Kane with a brace and Bellingham with a goal as well. Can we win the World Cup, Sophie? I think that Norway is going to be harder than Argentina right now. That's exactly what I said. Yeah, because Argentina, the only good thing they have is, well, they have Messi, which is good, and they have a good team, but Cape Verde and Egypt, we're so close to them. You sound like a more comprehensive football commentator or analyst than a lot of the people I've heard back home in the UK. That's exactly what I said. Who's on the back of your shirt, Lewis? Oh, Lewis. There you go. I haven't heard of that. Put him in the team, Tukul. Where do you play, Lewis? Which position? Striker. There we go. Bench Kane. Lewis up top. Forty-one. Forty-one? So you play soccer here in Florida? Yeah. What's your team called? Fort Lauderdale United. And who's your inspiration? Which player now that's playing, do you say, yeah, I want to be like him? Akitike. So you've scored 41 goals. So do you want to be a professional soccer player? And who would you play for, England or the USA? England. Yes, good lad. High five, Lewis. Like the women's team more, but like, oh, well, the women's one, like Chloe Kelly. Yeah. Chloe Kelly. I haven't been in the team online, but yeah. And then like the men's, probably Kane, Harry Kane.