This weekend
saw the start of the Footbally Eurovision World Cup Thingy (see I can talk
expertly on subjects I don’t know about), as Europe gets very excited to see
who will win Football trophies when they exclude all the good South American
teams who would win them otherwise.
Previously
on this blog I have talked at great length about how I don’t hate Football, but
generally find it easier to say you do to get out of arguments:http://dramattics.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/its-just-easier-to-hate-football.html
Anyway with England’s first game tonight, against France (see I know stuff), you may find that you are forced to watch the game against your will, even if you are supposed to be working. For some reason you’re allowed time off work to watch England play, but not to watch Cash in the Attic – it hardly seems fair. If you do find yourself in this football watching predicament, here’s some my top survival guide to how to get through the game:
1) Don’t at any point say “It’s Only a
Game” – yes, of course it is only a game. But the average football watcher won’t
take kindly to you pointing out the one thing they’ve been looking forward to
for the last two years, in their otherwise tedious life, is only a game. It’s
shattering the illusion, like telling small children the tooth fairy isn’t real
(though arguably less important).
2) If possible avoid watching in a pub. Traditionally
football fans prefer the pub environment for games, despite the fact that at
home or in the office, you can usually have a chair, drink and actually be able
to see the screen. Still the fans will attempt to take you to a pub, where you
are only allowed to order drinks during half-time and there’s enough testosterone
in the room that it’s a miracle people aren’t asphyxiated.
3) Spend time enjoying seeing your
normal friends behave oddly. Perfectly rational people you know, become
perfectly irrational watching football at the best of times. When England play
all bets are off. People you’ve known for years will start screaming, swearing
and generally behaving madly towards people they’ve never ever met on the
screen. During last World Cup I heard a perfectly a normal neighbour of mine
shout “Lampard, you c**t!” at the screen before apologising to his wife and
kids, by saying “Sorry, but he is a c**t!”. As an added bonus here, you can
enjoying the irony of seeing out of shape, un-athletic friends who probably
would have heart failure kicking a ball, shout at people in far better health
than they are at how bad they are at football. I always laugh, though remember
Rule 1, laugh internally!
4) Organise a sweepstake. You might not
care about football in the slightest, or about who wins the European
Championship. But join an office sweepstake and find yourself swept up in the
excitement of all simply because of the promise of being able to win cash. I
can find myself cheering for even the most obscure of European nations for the
promise of thirty-two quid should I win. Discretion on when to cheer on, may be
required if your team is playing England – though you will find it hard to not
radiate a glow of smugness should your team knock England out.
5) A good trick if you’re fed up of
people moaning that you know nothing about football is to memorise a few key
facts from a newspaper pull-out. With luck someone will ask you your opinion in
an attempt to mock you, and you can reply with the correct answer and wipe that
smug look of their face. I’ll never forget the time I picked up the cliché “The
Spanish team never perform as well as they should on paper”, which I
regurgitated when asked on this particular team’s success. Until this point I
believed the phrase “jaw-dropping” was metaphorical. It isn’t!
6) Why not set yourself your own
spotting challenge to see how many companies have inappropriately and sometimes
appalling crudely high-jacked the nation’s support of England in a desperate
bid to flog more of their unrelated products. This year, this has become a bit
harder as the Olympics has stolen the thunder of the European Championship.
Although this does add the bonus game of seeing how cunningly some products who
haven’t paid the Olympics for sponsorship have cleverly embodied the spirit of the
Olympics without using the word Olympics. And now I’ve mentioned “OIympics”
three times in one sentence Sebastian Coe will be coming round my house to
smash in my kneecaps.
7) If all the above tips don’t save you,
you can always team up with a similarly unimpressed friend and spend the entire
game discussing the most banal of vaguely related football things. If you are
going to be made to watch the football against your will, then get your own
back, by discussing which team has the nicest socks, which player you think
most needs a hug, and which team the person in black is playing for. If you
want to go for extra bonus annoying points, start asking football watchers what
the rules are, or confound them by trying to get them to explain to you the
offside rule in five thousand words or less.
8) Despite all evidence to the contrary
England fans will convince themselves that this is England’s year, this year
England will sweep to victory and “football will come home”. It won’t, but this
won’t stop England’s fans. I realise optimism to me is a stranger, but this is
taking optimism to a whole new cultish level. The fans will charge in
regardless, like a hedgehog convinced it can stop that thirty-tonne approaching
juggernaut. And when England inevitably crash out, our England fans will be
just as crushed as our metaphorical hedgehog. At this point you should avoid
all attempts to reason with them, there will be more tears than at an onion
chopping convention, England shirts will be burnt in the street, and the St
George’s Cross bunting and flags will suddenly feel about as appropriate as a
Gary Glitter poster in Mothercare.
Best thing you can do here is hide. Statements such as “Don’t worry there’s
always the World Cup in 2014” will simply earn you a punch.
9) And if none of these things work,
escape while you can. As long as you don’t want to go to a pub you’ll be
surprised how deserted the streets are during an England game. You can get so
much done without the tedium of others, shopping, commuting, getting your
haircut – there won’t even be a queue at the Post Office!
Hopefully
this guide will prove of some use, and if not don’t worry it will all be over
within a fortnight. And very decently England will almost certainly have
finished at least a week before this deadline!Oh and of course good luck for tonight England!
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