This week – apart from binging Elle, the ‘prequel’ series to Legally Blonde, I have mostly been watching football. This is a worrying development and builds on the week or so I spent watching the snooker in May. I like watching snooker, it’s like ASMR but with a winner. The commentators are so calm and quiet, the click of the cue ball against whatever the other colour is is short and sharp, and the audience (you can’t really call them a crowd) get ssssshed if they get overexcited. When I confessed this in the office, it turned out there were a fair few others watching it for the same reason. Honestly, you’d think we were all a little tightly wound in May or something.
Football, especially any World Cup game involving Latin/South American teams like Mexico or Paraguay, cannot be described as relaxing under any circumstances. Horns, drums, shouting, music – and that was just outside the England team’s hotel the night before. I didn’t see this game as I was sensibly fast asleep but I’ve been assured the second half was spectacular, notably for England winning despite only having ten men, for Jordan Henderson getting a yellow card without even going on the pitch, and then for breaking his arm falling over an advertising hoarding. As I write this I’m hoping to stay up for the England vs Norway game but kick-off is after 9pm so maybe not…I did have a nap earlier and am currently quite conscious so the signs are good.
I used to go regularly to club games featuring West Ham, but the international aspects of the so-called ‘Beautiful Game’ have passed me by. I didn’t even know Wales had a football team until I went to live in England as I was brought up in a staunchly rugby watching household. The Mitchell & Webb and IT Crowd sketches embedded in this post pretty much summed me up. For some while I worked part time in a West Bromwich Albion pub in Hackney and at that point could explain the offside rule with the aid of two highball glasses and a lemon but those days are long gone.
I was also scarred somewhat on the international front by the 1996 Euros game where England lost to Germany on penalties – the one Gareth Southgate* missed, bless him – which happened to be on my birthday. The angry English people watching the game – teacher training students. in a lot of cases – turning round and screaming ‘go home’ at the foreign students was ugly, to say the least. Especially as we were at uni in Wales at the time.
This World Cup, however, is proving entertaining although probably for the wrong reasons. The involvement of the Orange Basketcase in getting Balogun-the-American player’s suspension suspended, leading the Belgian manager to say he ‘didn’t know July 5th was April 1st in America’ as well as to UEFA being all self-righteous, and to England appealing against one of their player’s bans (unsuccessfully). Ronaldo was also allowed to play in the tournament under a similar rule, despite a three-match ban with two games left to serve, but I think this may be more to do with time off for good behaviour rather than interference by the Portuguese government. Infantino, the head of FIFA, is also the idiot who invented a ‘peace prize’ to award to Mr Sore Loser. Some countries who backed his presidency are now allegedly withdrawing their support. In the bad old 70s and 80s it was violent fans bringing the game into disrepute, occasionally the players in the nineties – it’s coming to something when it’s the head of the international game.
There has also been some extremely questionable refereeing – the France vs Paraguay game being a case in point, where poor Mbappe was being harassed throughout by the opposition, people diving were rolling over three times in outrageously dramatic ways, and the ref was unable, apparently, to see any of it. France won it on a penalty, which served the Paraguayans right quite frankly.
The so-called hydration breaks (a lot of advertising and additional time for managers to talk to players) even in indoor stadiums have added a lot of time onto games – as has all the extra time and penalties which can make games last forever more than two hours and delay my bedtime. The extra round of 48 teams at the start of the tournament has provided some excitement (and a lot of extra time) with close calls caused by teams like Cape Verde and Curacao for example.
The commentators are a good mix of men, women and Roy Keane’s beard which made him look quite grandfatherly but he shaved it off midweek. I like the technical explanations from the ex-US women’s coach, a full on Essex girl who started with chalk until they let her play with the computer. Why are they broadcasting from what looks like a breakfast TV set though?
Women commentators really annoy some men which is an added bonus, especially since the women’s team have arguably brought football home much more recently and reliably than the men’s. That’s something else that gets right on my nerves – the constant banging on about 1966. I mean, good lord people – sixty years! David Baddiel’s ‘thirty years of hurt’ is now twice that and they still won’t shut up. I’m not sure what they’d do if they actually won it, of course – what would they go on about then?
Right, it’s 9.20pm and the build-up to the game is starting. I’d better find some snacks and a drink and phone the friend who explains it all to me…
*I have a lot of time for Gareth Southgate, of course, and have supported him and his waistcoats through several tournaments. He strikes me as an extremely sensible chap who’s still doing a lot for young men. His empathy towards his players and his gentlemanly behaviour is much better than, for example, the coach I saw getting yellow carded by the ref in a game this week.
Things making me happy this week:
- Seeing schools enjoying the Centre at last – they’ve been in, I haven’t, just to be clear
- This in turn meant I got to hug Chris Bailey and congratulate him on his wedding earlier in the week
- House sitting in Buckhurst Hill meaning I could commute on the airconditioned Weaver Line, at least until it broke
- A Wowcher offer – a 60 minute sports massage in airconditioned splendour near Liverpool St
- Hackney Gelato Banana Caramel and Pecan flavour ice cream
- Plotting the Little Owls story and craft session this week. I’ll be reading Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came To Tea and we’ll be making tiger masks
- The whole Clacton by-election farce. Count Binface for the win, please.
Same time next week, by which time I think it might actually be all over.
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading
Fathomfolk/Tideborn – Eliza Chan
The Pixie in the Pickle Jar/The Ghost in the Pole Barn – Hailey Edwards
River of Light – Violet Fenn
Letters from the Last Apothecary – Bita Behzadi
What Kirsty did next 