England squad greet young fans in Kansas two hours before tornado forces players indoors

Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and the rest of England’s 26-man World Cup squad were signing autographs for local schoolchildren in glorious Kansas sunshine on Saturday evening — just two hours before two tornadoes touched down in the area and left more than 68,000 homes without power.

The squad had been training at their Kansas City base when Kane, Bellingham, Jordan Pickford, Jarell Quansah, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze posed for selfies with students invited to meet the Three Lions. Local dignitaries joined the group in a VIP section as part of England’s welcome to the city. Among those present were participants from a Blind Soccer demonstration led by Blind Sports Coordinator Leah Enright, alongside a Unified Team of players with and without intellectual disabilities, and students from Ryogoku Soccer Academy, an international school founded to raise awareness for youth football.

By 9pm local time, the mood had shifted sharply. The US National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the Kansas City Metropolitan area — home to 2.2 million people — citing destructive winds of up to 80 mph. A tornado watch remained in effect until 11pm for northeastern and east-central Kansas and west-central Missouri. Sirens sounded in the centre of Kansas City, and mobile phone alerts urged residents to take shelter in a sturdy building away from windows.

Staff at England’s hotel, situated in what locals call Tornado Alley, briefed the squad on storm protocol. The players were already inside watching Scotland’s 1-0 opening victory over Haiti and NBA basketball when the alert was issued. “They watched the Scotland game and the NBA basketball finals,” a source said. “They followed the advice and stayed indoors.”

Power was lost at the hotel during the Scotland match, briefly cutting the TV screens before being restored after several minutes. Live coverage continued to carry emergency warnings, with the game reduced to a small insert in the corner of the screen while forecasters reported one tornado had touched down 34 miles south of the England camp. Local residents described the storm as one of the worst to hit the area in the past year.