This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Annabel, Grace and I are all gripped. We chat with each other about it, turn off our computers and phones during matches, and are now equally desperate for the big win. So as I got it so wrong I am handing over to my Other Half and Better Informed (when it comes to football only) and I am letting him lead this week’s CW Comment piece. I will be ‘coming home’ next week with a more sensible topic! Poppy x
Thank you my darling Poppy for letting me into the inner sanctum of CountryWives to write about this most favourite topic of mine and every other man in England….SPORT. I also want to revel in the fact that you admit you got it wrong – this must be a first in nearly 30 years of marriage! So here goes with my maiden ‘post.’
It is Henley Royal Regatta week, a time for Pimms, Boaters, striped, colourful blazers, and for the women, dresses below the knee. Yet even in the sumptuous surrounds of Stewards (the inner sanctum of the Henley Royal Regatta), at 5pm on Saturday, we were treated to a loud and continuing chorus of “Coming home, Coming Home, Football is coming home”.
I asked myself, as I waived my straw trilby in the air, what has caused such emotion?
It must be more than England appearing in the semi-finals of the Football World Cup, although that is certainly something to sing about! It is that long lost sense of pride that comes with home success.
England is the home of soccer. We transitioned soccer, or what the British and many other people around the world call “football,” into the game we know today. However we should only have ever allowed anyone else to play against us providing they let us win. Play hard, even go to penalties but the result is not in question – we win. Alas that was not put into the rules and so we face competition.
Of course everyone is always against us. According to us the refs are biased, Fifa gave us the toughest group and there’s no air conditioning in our players’ changing rooms. Yet in spite of all the adversity, some of which may be imagined on our part, we are in the semi-finals tonight.
Our 3 Lions tee-shirts, last worn in 1990, are being stretched over our somewhat larger frames and our PRIDE has been restored.
However just a reminder of what’s going on around this euphoria; 12 Thai boys and their football coach were trapped in a cave with rising water levels and terrifying conditions but thankfully have been rescued; the British government is imploding with MPs lining up to stab our Prime Minister in the back, two Cabinet ministers have already resigned, and a young women has been murdered by a nerve gas, allegedly delivered to these shores by the Russians.
So Football had better come home on Sunday, or I dread to think what this burst of euphoria will turn into and I for one will be leaving home!