Jumbo 875 – messages for England and their supporters?

Solving time: 26:05, one mistake

I went wrong with 45, my last entry, opting for La! rather than Lo! for “Look”, which was probably too far towards barred-grid vocabulary. The rest was fairly straightforward. As usual, if I’ve missed out a clue that puzzled you, ask away. Looking back now, I assume the two long entries PUT ONES BEST FOOT FORWARD and KEEP ONES FINGERS CROSSED were there for footballers and supporters – the puzzle appeared on the day of their first 2010 World Cup match.

Across
1	L(1,QUID)ATE
15	ARIOS(T(riolets))O – Ariosto wrote Orlando Furioso (he says after checking), and “arioso” (roughly ‘like an aria’) is “in lyrical style”
18	S(TRUMP)ET – referring to “the last trump”, and straightforward once you ignore the trumpet that’s nearly as loud in this answer as the plastic on es you can hear on World Cup coverage
20	BALSAMIC = (basil cam(e))*
25	PROS(CRIB=student’s aid)E – prose apparently means a passage of, er, prose, for translation
30	DOMINI(qu)E –
35	PI=religious,LOT,LIGHT
38	MUCK(RA(n)K)ER – nice to see the informal “mucker” herer
39	POO(D)LE – Poole is a resort just along the coast from Bournemouth, with a famous pottery and a large natural harbour.
40	RIO=city,TER(m)=name
45	LO,P(GR)ASS – by the time I’d seen mountain route = PASS, lapgrass seemed pretty convincing, but it’s lopgrass that actually exists
47	FASTNESS – 2 defs – if the other dictionaries agree with Chambers (which happens to be to hand when writing this), a keep and fastness are both simply strongholds as well as the more specific meaning of ‘keep’. In the other def, you need to remember the colour-related meaning of ‘fast’
54	BAIRN – Brian=man, with the central 3 letters reversed
56	EL,SEW,HERE
Down
1	LAMP POSTS – 2 defs – “Rigid standards” = supporting poles, and places where setters (=dogs) sometimes go (=urinate).
3	IBSEN – Brand was a dramatic poem which was his first success, in 1866 – I guess a dramatic poem counts as a play
6	R.E.,BUT=objection,TABLE=board
7	T.(ERROR)S.,TRUCK=dealings
10	S(LIP=backchat)WAY
12	EYOT=”eight” – despite appearances, “eyot” sounds the same as “ait” as well as meaning the same
17	C(AS)EMENT – I thought stucco was plaster, but Chambers has “plaster or cement”
19	MO(DERAT=trade*)OR – “berth” has to be a verb for the cryptic reading
22	TO GET HER = “why men woo girl”
26	COMPLAINT=grouse – COMPLIANT=yielding, with the I=one ‘delayed’, i.e. coming up one character later
27	PANCAKE=slap=make-up,LANDING=area between flights (of stairs)
28	PRE-EMPTS – temper* in PS=Private Secretary
33	(ARCHI(P)E,LAG),O
37	H=hard,OU(SEGUE)ST
42	PANCR(E)AS – St Pancras is a “London saint” simply because the only St Pancras you’ve heard of is in London – I’m pretty sure the station is named after a church. You’d think from the way most people say it that the name was St Pancra’s, like St James’s, but apparently not.
44	TOP’S=chief’s,AIL=trouble – as a confirmed land-lubber, I’ll take the bit about “above gaff” on trust
46	P(ASS)ANT – “with dexter fore-paw raised” says Chambers, of this heraldic term
48	GROOVE – double def referring back to the good old days when records were black and shiny rather than silver and shiny, or computer files and not shiny
50	O(X),BOW=part of London – an ox-bow is a collar for a yoked ox=neat, as well as a type of lake in a flood plain