Football Isn’t Coming Home Just Yet And Neither, Sadly, Am I

The last time I watched a critically important England match, I was in a pub off Petticoat Lane crammed to the gills with people at 7.30 AM. We got tea and fried egg sandwiches from a caff round the corner, but of course much like all England matches since 1966, it wasn’t exactly destined to be the breakfast of champions. I had great fun nonetheless.

Either on that day or another close by, I tried to keep my jubilation discreet as South Korea beat Italy and Matteo and Emmanuelle collapsed in tortured disbelief onto the floor of the TV room. Leaving the hall shortly after to run an errand, a guy was jogging down Gower Street draped in the South Korean flag and I gave him a whoop and a thumbs up. He dashed across the road with a huge beam on his face and we exchanged a high-five.

In comparison, watching the match yesterday in my living room in the dead of night with only my Fairprice chicken cup noodles for company was rather less memorable. Remembering those halcyon¹ days and then looking at my life two years on is decidedly depressing.

¹ I realize I haven’t actually used the phrase “halcyon days” right, but I plead music wanker’s licence in support of the reference – I saw an Orbital gig the night England lost to Brazil.

Londoner Forever
4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Well it’s not like it wouldn’t have been possible for you to find a barfull of drunken expats to watch it with, had you wanted to….

  2. I concur. Time is definitely going in the wrong direction. Much as I enjoyed the match (I was drunk in a field in Somerset with 60,000 other people, apparently the largest crowd watching the match, including those actually there).

    Tell you what – I’ll move to Singapore, pretend to be you, and you can come back to London and pretend to be me. I think I need a change of scenery. Now, how to lose 4-5 stone in weight and around 8 inches in height….

  3. A cunning plan. A few years ago I might have been fooled. But by now your clevage, or rather lack of, would give the game away. I’d also become suspicious when I’d recognise the music references dropped in conversation.

    But I’d still play along for a while. Minus four or five stone you’d look really good in a dress.

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