"So have you been outside enjoying all this sun?" asked the checkout girl in Waitrose yesterday afternoon. "No, I've been sitting in my pants in the dark watching football all weekend, and this is the first time I've left my flat" I replied. Well, I didn't really - I lied to her face and told her I had (I don't feel half as bad lying to the Tesco staff as I do Waitrose - I think it's all the besuited 'managers' standing around like Casino pitbosses, making everyone feel guilty). In truth I was actually wishing she'd scan my stuff through quicker, as Mexico v Iran was kicking off soon.
The World Cup has started! The office sweeps have been conducted (I pulled out Brazil in ours), the wallcharts are up (I have two - it isn't a World Cup without a wallchart), the curtains are closed, and the non-football watchers are out pretending they're having fun whilst secretly wishing they had an excuse to sit in their pants drinking beer in the afternoon. It's one month every four years when the most popular sport on Earth takes centre stage and a global audience of something like 300 bazillion people tune in to see the excitement, flair and staggering haircuts that are a part of the beautiful game.
For us Europeans, this tournament in Germany gives us games at decent times of the day - for the 2002 finals in Korea/Japan the kickoffs were all over the place. As it happened I was in Australia when those games happened, and watched the final that year in a pub in Northern Queensland with a Gecko crawling about on the ceiling above us. For the 1994 finals I was in Spain, and there was a considerable rivalry between our largely British campsite and the neighbouring Dutch campers. Seeing as England didn't qualify for those finals, we supported everyone else - especially if they happened to be playing the Netherlands.
The England flag is also missing...
That brings me nicely to the subject of living in Scotland but supporting England. It's always been an interesting experience, as a noisy majority (but of course not all) Scots loudly cheer for any team playing England, the 'auld enemy'. I was emailed a photograph of the Scottish flag at the English border, which has been mysteriously joined by the flags of Sweden, Trinidad & Tobago and Paraguay - England's opponents for the group stages. Some pubs in Edinburgh give out free drinks in England lose, and as Scotland didn't qualify for Germany, sports shops have been doing a brisk trade in Trinidad replica shirts.
Mind you, unless alcohol's involved, I can take most of it - like our aforementioned office sweep which had the special rule whereby if you drew out England and didn't want them, you could put them back and pull out another team. This could have led to a heartaching conflict for the Scottish supporter - the natural dislike of cheering for England against the possibility of winning money - but as it happened the bloke who picked England was Irish and decided to keep them. Likewise our office fantasy league has produced some interesting team names 'I hope England get stuffed', being the pick - although 'Peter Crouch's High Balls' is my personal favourite.
Anyway, back to the game itself. As I write this, we're barely 1/5 of the way through the tournament, with over three weeks of diving, playacting, and speculative shots fired over the crossbar to look forward to (Italy's first game is tonight). The shops will continue to run out of booze (not uncommon up here as it happens). I used to work in a Spar warehouse, and to a man the staff there hated football tournaments as they had to work twice as hard to cope with the beer orders. I'm going to miss my first game today as I'm at work - sadly Japan v Australia, which holds particular interest for me of course. But as of 5pm I'll be back in front of the matches, rooted to the sofa. I should say - if you thought I was completely vegetative over the weekend only watching football, I did vary my day slightly - I watched the Grand Prix too...
