Forget about 2020 for just one second and relive every iconic moment of summer 2018

Hayley Hughes and Harry Maguire…come back


Two and a half pints down. A stranger’s arm grabs you around the shoulders as you’re jumping up and down. It brushes against the back of your neck and you realise you’ve caught the sun. It’s going to be a bit pink in the morning, but oh well. You don’t even really like football – or pints for that matter – but here you are, in a beer garden, celebrating that England goal with beer-drenched strangers. When you get home, Love Island’s going to be on the telly and someone’s going to get pied. Maybe you don’t realise it at the time, but that’s as good as it ever got.

This summer has been a shit show, and it’s only made everyone more nostalgic for summer 2018.

It really was the perfect summer, with the stars aligning perfectly: a legendary series of Love Island, England smashing it in the World Cup, and a heatwave all combining for the perfect summer.

Across four consecutive days, England were within touching distance of a World Cup final, Samira quit Love Island, Trump walked in front of the Queen, and then the Thai cave rescue happened. You won’t be able to top that, no matter how many socially distanced pints you have.

Here it is for you to relive in glorious nostalgia-vision.

June 4th – Love Island 2018 begins

BUM BABADADA BUM DADADA!!!! HERE WE GOOOOO!!!!

This series of Love Island had perhaps the most iconic cast: Jack and Dani, Eyal, Hayley, Megan Barton Hanson, Wes, Josh Denzel, Dr Alex, Samira, Jack Fowler, Georgia “Loyal” Steele. You knew it was going to be good from the moment they set foot in the villa.

8th – The Love Island Brexit Chat

What’s Brexit? Who can forget Hayley Hughes’ most iconic moment, where the only two things Brexit brought to mind were trees and holidays.

Kendall is also dumped from Love Island after Adam couples up with Rosie.

10th – Eyal and Hayley have their big argument and Megan Barton Hanson is introduced to the world

An absolutely iconic love island tiff. Two legends duking it out. “I’m not your hun, hun”? Vintage.

Love Island changed forever when Megan Barton Hanson came in. She was playing the game on a completely different difficulty mode to everyone else.

11th – Trump and Kim Jong Un shake hands

Unlike Eyal and Hayley, Trump and Kim Jong Un decided to somewhat bury the hatchet and shake hands, in an historic diplomatic moment.

For all its seriousness, this was barely a month after we saw the Korean dictator’s car being flanked by the hilarious jogging security guards.

14th – Robbie Williams puts his middle finger up at the World Cup opening ceremony

“We need someone to open the biggest sporting event of the year… Who’s got that kind of gravitas? Oh, yeah! Robbie Williams!” For some reason, Robbie decided to give the whole world the finger.

It wasn’t Knebworth, but at least it wasn’t David Guetta.

16th – Italian Elon musk

Just an all-time great Twitter bit. Excellent internet for an excellent summer. There’s nothing much to it, just a guy taking the piss out of Elon Musk – Summer 2018’s soon-to-be-protagonist – by pretending to be an Italian version of the Tesla edgelord.

18th – England beat Tunisia 2-1 in their first group game

Harry Kane scores twice, World Cup fever is here. It’s 25 degrees. Summer has well and truly arrived.

On that very same day, Alfie Deyes also gifted the world “I am not a Tory”.

19th – This excellent meme

Honestly, if you want to capture the essence of Summer 2018, show them this picture:

22nd – Ariana Grande reveals to the world that Pete Davidson has a 10 inch dick

And with that, the phrase Big Dick Energy entered the mainstream.

23rd – The Thai football team enter the cave

Uh oh.

24th – England beat Panama 6-1, it’s coming home

A sunny Saturday, England five up by half time. Oh boy, it’s coming home.

28th – England lose to Belgium in their final group game but nobody cares

Sure, England lost, but it turned out okay. Our route to the semis wouldn’t have been as ridiculously easy if we’d won.

I don’t really remember this. You don’t really remember this. It’s just a footnote in the incredible summer.

29th – Drake releases “Scorpion”

A double album with 25 tracks. 25.

July 2nd – Thai football team found alive by British divers

The football team are found alive, deep into the cave, by a pair of British divers.

Cheryl and Liam Payne also split up. How did we cope?

3rd – England beat Colombia on penalties in the last 16 of the World Cup

Penalties! England winning on penalties! This was around about the point everyone started going crazy for Gareth Southgate and Jordan Pickford.

This BBC montage of the penalty shootout will also make you want to cry. It was, bluntly, as close to redemption as this country has come in years. The pain of Southgate’s miss all those years ago, dissolved. 50 years of hurt, gone.

As Eric Dier fires home the winning penalty, the commentator lets out a raw, unrestrained “YYYEES!”, before catching his composure and reeling off his lines. You and the whole country, mate.

6th – Tom Zanetti DJs in the Love Island villa

Beyonce at Coachella, the Rolling Stones on the Copacabana, Hendrix at Woodstock. The only thing to hold a candle to those performances is Tom Zanetti DJing the Ministry of Sound Pool Party in the Love Island villa 2018.

There are few purer things in this world than a dozen Love Islanders trying to recreate a club.

7th – England beat Sweden in the World Cup quarter finals

Oh, Slabhead. Everyone in the country was meathead-over-heels for Harry Maguire, who – hadn’t you heard – was at the Euros as a fan only two years earlier.

More to the point, the game happened on a Saturday afternoon under a 30 degree sun.

With that header, England started to dream. Could we…win the World Cup?

Just to prove that 2018 was a summer which really packed it all in, this was the same glorious, sunny day as London pride.

8th – Elon Musk offers to help the Thai cave rescue

The whole weird Elon thing should’ve been a taste of what was to come, let’s be honest.

When you put this in context, a few weeks after notoriously-too-online Musk was savaged by the Italian Elon Musk bit, you might be able to see the attempt to be the hero in a new light.

9th – Boris Johnson resigns as foreign secretary over Brexit

This was a move which got him absolutely nowhere.

10th – The remaining boys are rescued from the Thai cave

Perhaps the defining news saga of summer 2018 comes to a positive end, as all of the football team are finally rescued from the Thai cave. However, earlier, diver Saman Kunan died preparing the rescue attempt.

11th – England’s World Cup semi against Croatia

Is there a more iconic image, in the whole of Western history, than 30,000 England fans creating a fine mist of pints as Kieran Trippier blasts one in the top corner?

Extra time. Fucking extra time. That’s how close we were.

12th – Samira quits Love Island

Watch this video. It’ll break your heart.

Samira leaving the villa to be with Frankie was a huge deal at the time. It rocked the Love Island villa.

13th – Trump walks in front of the Queen

God, remember how controversial the baby balloon was?

It’s 27 degrees and sunny, the balloon is flying, and then Trump somehow tops it all off by walking in front of the Queen.

To make things even better, the whole country had been listening to Three Lions so much that it topped the charts.

As a four day run of Summer, this is pretty hard to top.

18th – Elon Musk apologises for calling British cave diver “pedo guy”

The diver was part of the rescue operation that saved the football team in the Thai cave.

20th – Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is released

After 10 years, the sequel to the ever-popular musical was released. People went nuts. What’s happened to everyone on the island? They’re alright? Good. How’s Donna? Oh. Oh, she’s died, has she? Shame. But at least we’ve got Colin Firth. And Cher, for some reason.

25th – Water found on Mars

Seems pretty insignificant next to all the Love Island stuff, doesn’t it.

30th – Love Island final

Jack and Dani win, of course. If we’re getting critical about the impact of their win on Love Island as a TV format, it’s clear that Tommy and Molly-Mae’s clear attempt to emulate their love story a year, only to get pipped to victory by Greg and Amber, spelled the end for the show’s ability to credibly pretend it was about finding love.

But the real shock is Laura Anderson and Paul Knops coming in second. A steal.

And that was basically it. All downhill from there, really.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

Get on the plane and find out which England World Cup squad member your uni is

Here is the Strongbow Dark Fruits Boy, and he’s bringing banter back in 2018

Calling time on Alfie Deyes, the YouTuber moron who can’t control what comes out of his mouth