Article
Are you enjoying Euro 2008?
We were sat in a restaurant talking about holidays. My sister wanted advice and my husband piped up that the best holiday we had ever been on was our first trip to Majorca.
“You only think that because we watched the 1994 World Cup there,” I said. The fact is, football tournaments can define your life.
Troubled that you will be in Benidorm on a tight budget this month? Fear not. It will be one of the greatest holidays of your life. You will not remember the bad food, the bathroom mould and not quite completed pool.
You will recall instead the atmosphere in the bar as Spain took on Sweden and the way the waiter wept and hugged you upon realising you were not Scandinavian after all. (Actually in 1994, I was embraced most often for not being German; but those were the days when all footie fans hated the Germans. After their gentle hosting of the last World Cup and their refreshing brand of attacking football, we all quite like them now.
And stop worrying if your country has not qualified for Euro 2008. It is simply much more fun to be nerve free and jolly about the whole thing.
You can be a football chameleon, urging on Portugal one night and cheering for Austria the next. You can even change your mind half way through a game; how cool is that?
You could start off rooting for France because you have a soft spot for Thierry Henry and then decide that actually Romania are being incredibly plucky and deserve something from the game and so you find yourself shouting ‘Mutu, Mutu.’
We are all under pressure to pick one country to support but it is not necessary to do this in order to enjoy the tournament. Confound your friends by telling them you will be supporting Italy because of your girlfriend’s grandmother, Holland because they are orange like Blackpool and Greece because hey, they’re the reigning champions don’t you know.
Like most Liverpool fans, I will support Spain but then, to be honest, I would have even if England had qualified having been born without a patriotic bone in my body.
It could all prove too much for young Joaquim, who arrives any day now on a Spanish exchange visit. He will see the Spanish flag flying, in pride of place, from our window and wonder, with some horror, if it is part of an over the top welcoming committee.
As I have always served food in the style of the nation I wish to win, Joaquim will also have to suffer omelettes and paellas that make him pine for his mother’s kitchen.
Of course if you can actually be there, then go. I backpacked around Sweden for Euro 92, wrote a few articles about the embarrassment of being English and generally had a hoot supporting the Danes.
For Euro 96 I was expected to work a bit harder, was asked to cover the camps of Denmark, Italy and the Czech Republic and I roared across Northern England on speed camera-free lanes to file stories on all three every day.
I felt I single-handedly guided the Czechs to the final, so close to the team and their own reporters did I become and the Golden Goal scored by Germany at Wembley was one of the most disappointing moments of my life.
Then I started writing the ‘armchair view’ and having a pop at John Motson, a job that requires no mileage whatsoever. But the flags flutter still on my house and who knows, I may decide to munch on a Doner kebab or two.
