i made the ill-advised decision to go to a public screening of the germany-spain match, and had quite the fright don’t you know.
i rocked up at kick-off, sensibly avoiding the warm-up and instead filling up on pork-pies and the like as you do, but shamefully forgetting my spastic-trumpet and mini german flag!
how i wish i could have joined in with the rest of the tribe and waved said flag with a self-mocking-but actually-fairly-gormless expression on my face.
as it was i had to sit through a sadly tedious game surrounded by a mixture of both the lazy and apathetic, and dominant, downward-fists-motion, mid-mating-season gorillas (the latter types were, terrifyingly, mostly women).
those who were clearly bored and weren’t really sure What People Do When A Game Of Football Is Boring absently and silently lolled about, slowly blinking or picking their nose in that disturbing way where the finger seems to stay poked awkwardly in the crevice until they are caught in the act by a disgusted or incredulous onlooker (me).
but it was the ones with voices that concerned me. the aggressive, once-every-two-years-when-my-country-plays-in-a-tournament, i’ll-suddenly-start-giving-a-shit types.
and here i think of england. “cam on saafgate, kick his fackin’ legs in” she cries.
“facking ‘AVE him” roars another.
“COME OOOOOOON” some dick brays from behind me.
“i’m gonna lose it in a minute” he mutters as i turn quickly back around - eyes red, knuckles white on long-empty pint glass.
i’m not sure why, but during these moments i rarely feel like mentioning that i couldn’t give a Flying Fuck whether england win or lose, and that i’m just here to hopefully see a good game (“sod off to the family section then, you raving poof”, one could argue would be the perhaps-justified response).
and back over here it's much the same....
“was soll das denn?”
“scheiss auf deutschland...”
our heroes battle valiantly for their €500,000 world cup winning bonus, but it’s all to no avail, and very slowly the grim realization that ‘it ain’t gonna ‘appen’ sets in, forming some hilariously vacant stares where once passionate, meaningful daggers had been.
as the final whistle goes, and people toodle off in small groups and the collective sense of togetherness that was a few seconds before so strong falls limply away, a previously silent member of the crowd suddenly starts whooping and leaping in the air, brandishing a colossal spanish flag while doing so.
i laughed, perhaps a little too loudly.
i still get a lot of stick from people back home for not giving a shit about how england fare in sport - people just don't get it.
it stems back, i guess, to my dad going - for want of a better expression - fucking berserk whenever ‘we’ scored a goal, to the point where as a young and fairly sensitive lad i would actually weep in fear of this sudden display of loud and terrifying epilepsy.
“calm down, you’re scaring the kids”, my mum once said.
true.
as passive as the old man actually is, fast forward fifteen years to the world cup in 2002, and the sight of apes throwing rubbish bins through windows (that old classic!) when france beat england can’t help but evoke somewhat negative kind of emotions in me. YES, my parents fucked on one very special night (er...) on this same, wholesome piece of land as yours, but that is really all we have in common here.
i’ll stop paraphrasing bill hicks, you get the point.
“you cynic! you sneer! you snide cunt.”, i hear you cry.
fair call. i guess there is something I’m missing, but praise the lord my lady feels exactly the same (where were you when i needed you, surrounded by a sea of loud, bellowing oafs), so although backed into a corner i still stand tall.
chest puffed.
