[Oh, I spend most of my time referring to Robin as an arrogant tosser (a) because it's often true and (b) because it saves me the trouble of coming up with a wittier insult.]
Okay, you're curious now, aren't you,
you morbid little voyeur...?
;-p
It was Donna's birthday. She left the office at five, and I caught her up, with Closet-Goth Nancy and Paul McGee, at the Hogshead in Brixton. The benches were laid out in rows, with a giant TV screen at the end. It was like being on the terraces. The atmosphere was electric - hundreds of people crammed into a pub, spilling out into the gardens and lining up against the bar. Donna was already wasted - off the planet on Jack D and Coke. She staggered happily around, running into the street and stopping passing taxis shouting, "I'm thirty today!"
"When I were six years old, me dad pulled me in from the garden and sat me down in front of the television. He literally forced me to watch it" - grinned Paul - "Watch this, son. History in the making. And it was. Nineteen sixty-six. History!" Paul reckoned it was going to happen again - after all, if we can beat Argentina, we can beat anyone, and we never get knocked out before the semis, now, do we?
Nancy left. She's not into football, so she left in the ad break before the game began. I enjoy footie like I enjoy films - it can make or break my day, but it's not going to ruin my life. This puts me in a weird position at work, where to say you missed the game is tantamount to saying you forgot to breathe. This puts me in a weird position at home, where only Rik ever watches it - the others having a pathalogical hatred of the sport. Until today, I was an Armchair Supporter - I watched it when I could, and enjoyed it when I watched it. Same way as I watch Grand Prix at Claire's, gripped whilst viewing and forgotten ten minutes later.
Today I graduated to a Pub Supporter. I squeezed between Donna's brother John and a loutish skinhead crouched the other side. The game began. It was getting hotter inside the pub. The chatter quietened, and then swelled as a steady round of chants began. All, curiously, to the tune of "Go West", by The Village People. It started with "You're Shit, And You Know You Are", to the gleefully politically-incorrect (hey - nobody meant it) "You're Shit, And You Lost The War". The first goal was scored so quickly it scarcely registered. When the Argies equalised, I barely had time to register disappointment. Then - 2-1! I couldn't believe it! I had not expected us to do so well, but with two goals scored in such little time, I could almost picture us winning with ease. The second goal was the one that did it for me. I finally Understood. That rush of adrenalin. That sense of oneness with everyone there. Yeah!
Plus there was the fancy footwork - the incredible array of skill, discipline and stamina that attracted me to the game in the first place. How can anyone run around for ninety whole minutes? It's near unbelievable - especially in elements as harsh as the searing heat of summer games and the agonising cold of winter matches. Football inspires admiration. They're like ballet dancers out there - a choreographed masterpiece played out against the fiercest challenges of opposition.
The second Argentinian goal was agony. It was like being hit in the stomach. How are we going to beat that? We have to get a third - we have to. Then Beckham got sent off. I didn't even see it - people kept jumping out of their seats and blocking my view. I saw the performance of the supposed injured party though. Guy should win an Oscar. Down to ten men. "Ten Men, And You Can't Beat Us" we sang. The second half was torture. So many near misses. So many stomach-churning seconds of sheer hell as they got a little too close, or when one of our boys shot wide of the goal. "It's going to go to penalties, isn't it?" I said to Paul. I couldn't handle that. We always get beaten on penalties. Still, this time could be different, couldn't it?
Silence. Utter silence, and shock. A stunned silence. "Shocked and saddened" is the stock phrase, isn't it? I had bent my knees, ready to leap out of the air at the winning goal, when... No, it wasn't to be. I cradled Paul's head in my arms. Please God don't let him cry. I was pretty damn near to tears myself. Donna stared around wildly in disbelief. It couldn't happen, surely?
There was an eerie silence on the tubes. I commiserated with a couple of strangers. Men in suits with crushed expressions. I felt like I had as a small child standing beside the crumpled wreck of my dad's totalled car. This isn't real... this isn't happening.
After crawling home, exhausted and miserable, I rowed briefly with Robin before retiring. His "argument" was that football brings out the worst in people, that it feeds the mob mentality and turns ordinary people into hooligans. He says it's only a game, that it's supposed to be fun and that people take it much too seriously.
I agree, people can take it too seriously, but he's missing the fundamental point as to what football is all about. Football is a competition. It is the ultimate competition. It's absolute tribalism, team solidarity and the most primal of human instincts all in ninety minutes of sheer adrenalin. Competition is about winning - about pushing yourself to the absolute limits of your ability - about doing absolutely anything [that your moral limits will allow] to make sure that you cannot - and will not - be defeated.
Football is very much like the movies. You saw The Full Monty, didn't you? And you cheered at the end? And you cried at the end of Titanic, stumbling broken-hearted into the streets and unable to speak for two whole hours? It's only a film, get it? It just doesn't feel like it at the time. And just like the way that obsessed fans stalking soap stars doesn't make soap operas inherently bad, a few mindless thugs taking tribal nationalism to a level of violence doesn't make football as a whole a bad thing.
We lost. We sulked. Some
of us will for days. Still, the majority of us won't fight over it
(discounting verbal sparring), and we'll get the hell on with the
rest of our lives like we do every year when we predictably lose in a penalty
shootout. In Columbia, they shoot players who lose. Here, we
ridicule, forgive and forget. For ninety minutes, "It's not a game,
it's a war", according to Donna. For tonight, it's a tragedy.
From tomorrow to the next Big Game, it's just that - a game.
**Post-script: Rumour has it that
the Argentinian team will be disqualified due to drug usage. It remains
to be seen whether England will qualify as a result.**