so this is it, then. today marks the 10th anniversary, look you see, of the first steps taken by the England football team along the path of disappointing the fans. it is indeed a path so frequently taken that the familiarity with which we all have of it hardly makes noting the anniversaries a particularly wise venture. but, as fate had it, i was there for this one.
yes, then. we (or i, you read) speak (actually i write not speak) of June 12 2010. this was the day, or for those who like specifics evening, on which England launched their campaign for glory, seeking to once again lift the World Cup which they had only ever done once before.
oh, how the optimism flowed. so what if we had setbacks, such as Ferdinand out and no Beckham? this was the "golden generation", with the likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney and of course the great Terry out on the field. obviously they were better than anyone else in the world. our manager also happened to be the finest tactical brain what Italy had ever produced. the very easy group we found ourselves in meant that they might as well engrave England on the trophy before a ball was kicked.
except, of course, and mostly as usual, that was all patently complete bullsh!t. we had a team that it would be generous to describe as fractured, for that implies it would be possible to somehow put them together. for all sorts of reasons, most of which cannot be written of for fear of legal persecution, the players in the England squad had little interest in playing with each other and not too much interest in playing at all. if our manager actually did anything then it was to stress how important he felt it was to rather lose a match that you could not tediously draw 0-0, but mostly he just stood around, looking like a dorky middle management accountant in an ill-fitting suit that for some reason he believed made him stylish.
i am aware that some have spoken of this opening World Cup match for England, against the USA, as being "the best, greatest and most important" ever game of football. such talk is misguided, and foolish. anyone who ever feels they have been admonished or picked on for suggesting that they find the game of football to be dull and boring only has to wave a video of this match in their defence.
quite by chance one hears something that shall resonate with them forever. or at the very least ten years. the very best way i can describe this game of football for you is to more or less directly quote a chap, of a "London" accent, also at the game. as we were all leaving, somehow thankful that we survived in the match to hold on for a 1-1 draw against what turned out to be surprisingly vastly superior opponents (and to achieve that all they had to do was simply wish to actually play), he said "we have spent all this f*****g money to come all this f*****g way to watch this f*****g rubbish". not once, before or since, have i heard the personification of what it is to follow the England football team put so perfectly or eloquently.
as this was 2010 i think it is ok to say that the chap who said the above was a cockney. this was, and yes i state the obvious here, before now, so it was in the golden era before the dark days of Saidq Khan's reign of incompetence as Mayor of London. back then it was easy, for all Londoners were cockney. now, with Khan's dangerous ways of dividing the people and making them hate each other, one finds rampant racism, with arguments about over "proper cockney" and "not proper ones", which get called "estuary". may London one day, soon, again get a Mayor worthy of the people and the place.
how was it that the USA football team managed to comprehensively get the better of England? few saw it coming. that the USA manager looked, and acted, very much like a second rate Mick McCarthy tribute act (probably) tells you all you need to know of England's abject lack of morale and management. he (whatever his name was) worked out that if he fielded just four players in the team of eleven who actually wanted to play the game, then that would be at least one more than England had. and so this was done, and so the USA won 1-1, as far as they could.
was this the single biggest humiliation inflicted on England by the USA in football? no. it is not even close. that particular disgrace was in 1994. after somehow becoming the "star" of the tournament, presumably because of his wonky appearance, World Cup 94 "star player" Alexi Lalas refused to move to an English club, saying that the level of talent on offer there was beneath his. there's knowing that you are rubbish, there is being told that you are rubbish, and then there is saying that you aren't good enough for Alexi Lalas to grace your stage.
make no mistake, i thoroughly enjoyed the day and the night, and the next morning, out. we all did, really. yes, there i am with Dad, and indeed Richard enthusiasts, that is he there too. it was only the game of football itself which was the disappointing part of the adventure out.
it does indeed feel bad, wrong, and maybe even treacherous to speak ill of the England football team, even ten years on. but that is just because of how you are conditioned to think of them as great, and that it is they always get "cheated" out of victory. modern fans may be confused by this, as in fairness under Gareth Southgate and with players that actually just want to play, well, the England football team is quite respectable these days. but it was not always so.
a distinct school of thought is that it was not just England who were utter, appalling abject rubbish at this tournament. there is a school of thought which suggests, or teaches, that hardly any of the teams involved even wished to be there, let alone try and win it. let us not forget that eventual winners Spain attempted to get knocked out as soon as possible, losing their opening game against Switzerland. which was watched by the wonderful FIFA president of the time, Sepp "bellend" Blatter, who just happened to be Swiss.
not that England or Spain are alone in this. from what i remember of it Italy and France got knocked out in the group stage. whereas surrender is of course very much part of the French way, this early dismissal was surprising, as they went to extraordinary lengths to cheat their way to the final via an Henry handball incident. other fancied teams who could have easily won it - Germany, Argentina, Brazil and even Portugal - did little better.
yes, i think it was at around the point of the above picture being taken (and i think it was taken on my smart blueberry phone) that we considered that Dad might have had a bit too much sauce by this point of the day and night and following morning out. whilst i was under strict instruction to "go steady" with the ale i waas still quite merrily smashed, so can't recall it all. but, sometimes a picture tells it all, and Dad waving around a massive England flag and an equal USA flag speaks. i am pretty sure that shortly after this Richard did, or attempted to do, something i would rather not repeat here with the USA flag, as to recall it might spark a diplomatic incident.
fans, both at the games and at home around the world, were not always happy with it all, either. complaints rolled in about how cold it was, what with the tournament being played in the southern hemisphere winter. also, particularly for fans at home watching, crowds at the games were all apparently going out of their way to "spoil it" for everyone by making the wrong sort of noise. this is of course in reference to the vuvuzela instrument. yes it is a bloody annoying noise, but when you get all p!ssed up and have a go at one it feels like you are making a f*****g amazing sound, man.
this was probably the first instance where people became aware that playing in, watching or even going and winning the World Cup was all of a sudden not the biggest thing in football. a World Cup used to be special simply because once every four years we all got to see the very best of the exceptionally best (and England) play against each other. by 2010, the huge lure of money had taken just about every great player in the world to some European club or other, and so every single year in the form of the Champions League one got to see the very finest in the game play some of the greatest matches ever.
in an attempt to thwart such, of course FIFA just went ahead and insisted on more international fixtures every season. this compounded their problem. by making international matches all the more often or frequent, then a saturation point was reached and so an eventual tournament came to feel even less special. strange, what the appeal of money can do to your thinking.
overall, it would be fair to say that South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014 will be remembered as the very last times there was any sort of honour or prestige in hosting the World Cup. now there is all sorts of fuss about how, exactly, it came to be that Russia hosted it in 2018 and Qatar shall (the invisible war on the plague pending) host it in 2022. i would say let them, and whoever, get on with it, just allow FIFA or similar to dump the tournament on any nation that takes their fancy. with persistent dwindling interest in who plays in it and who wins it, next comes a decline in the level of interest in watching.
do you know, i absolutely loved the day out to see England vs USA in 2010. yes, the team were a complete disgrace, but nothing else was. we had a great day out, the fans who had flown from far and wide to be there were amazing, and overall a fabulous time except for the 90 or so minutes when the actual match was being played. a particular highlight, away from the cheap beer and massive steaks being fried on the roadside, was some ginger nut biscuits obtained from a petrol station at about 3 in the morning. or 4.
bravo, indeed, to the chap pictured above that went to the match dressed as Captain America out of Super Heroes Adventure Space or whatever the films were called. i quite like to think he came over on the plane dressed like that, too. he was quite ecstatic about his beloved USA beating Britain 1-1. some of the England fans, rather disappointed to have lost 1-1 to America, sought to pick a fight with this bloke, but their attention was soon diverted to the much better offer of cheap beer and massive steaks outside the stadium.
well, anyway, that's that for yet another trip down memory lane on this blog. decimal anniversaries always seem to be the ones to celebrate. how and why this came to be i do not know for sure, i just go with the flow. anything for a quiet, normal life, really.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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