I got into football because of peer pressure, because everyone else was into football, because it was the fashionable thing to do.
I remember it well. "Oh are you a new girl? What team do you support?" "United? Good. Oh, what's your name?" I even remember where it took place. Mrs Eaton's class. Well, actually, the cloakroom outside Mrs Eaton's class. My peg had a rabbit on it. February 1973. First day at Primary School. I knew the answer, though, because I could already read. The second book I learnt to read was my uncle's Manchester United annual 1968. It had loads of pictures in it. That helps when you're five. Pictures.
Then you realise that just because everyone else is interested doesn't mean that you have to be. It's part of growing up. I think I realised this when I was nearly grown up. About 2001, I think. You see, in my teens and twenties I was a football nut. I was a Stretford Ender. I went to live matches. League, Cup, Friendlies, Reserves. I collected magazines and compiled statistics. In, say, August 1982, I could reel off the results and scorers for every first-team match for the previous season. Football is great. You don't choose a club, it gets chosen for you.
But the best thing about football is what happens on the pitch. Twenty two players at the peak of physical fitness, with a rare ability to control and pass a ball, divide a defence, clear off the line. The sheer beauty of a winger dribbling down the left, crossing it in, seeing a striker rise like a salmon and....GOAL!!! And the atmosphere! Nothing compares to being on the Stretford End, sucked in by the passion and fervour. The chair of my ward Labour Party - a former teacher and retired respected official of NASUWT - said in 1985, "When I go to hospital and they ask my religion I say Manchester United but they put me down as CofE."
2006 World Cup. It dominates the media. If you haven't noticed it's on, there's something wrong with you. Great for football fans. It's a pleasure to sit and watch two matches almost back-to-back, even if one does involve Ukraine. To see the greatest players in the world, to feel the atmosphere, even through the TV set. And to hope. In 1998 I declared England will never have a better chance than in 2006. Oh fuck
Then there are people who are not especially football fans, but enjoy the carnival, the Shared Communal Experience, being part of something. People who quite like football, but it's low down their list of things to do compared to Real Life and other hobbies/interests. And people who are simply not interested, never will be, probably never have been, except for that period of peer pressure at school, or before they began to understand that media hype doesn't have to be obeyed.
And then there was the woman in the pub yesterday. It was a nice pub, and we got seats and tables with a good view of various screens. We started off on the Theakstons and moved onto the Paarl Heights Chenin Blanc. Jimmy was wearing his England shirt (which he then stripped off and changed into a proper shirt, in the Royal Opera House. Yes, in the amphitheatre. Not in the Gents, not in some quiet corner. In the Auditorium . Five minutes before curtain up. "Oh my god," I said, "suppose there are my blog readers here, suppose they notice you don't have any chest hair..."). I just wore the same dress all day. I can. I'm a girl. I don't need Three Lions on my Chest to feel the emotional highs and lows of a game.
I was trying to work out why she was there. Long and short, I think, she was with her mate, who pulled. I wondered whether they had pre-arranged to meet the guy, or whether they had worked out he would be there, or whether they had decided that a pub showing an England game would be a good place to pull. He wasn't English. So she was stuck being woman-whose-mate-has-pulled.
She went in with the sole intention of drawing attention to herself. Annoyingly, she was stood in my peripheral vision, and I swear she spent more time hitching at her clothes than watching the football. Pulling up her low cut halter neck top so that her bra wouldn't show at the front; just a shame the entire back strap was on display throughout. Hitching up her skirt so her knickers wouldn't show. They did. Big knickers. Nylon. Grey-used-to-be-white. I'm not sure if it's a Croydon facelift when the voice is posh. However drop-dead fashionable the outfit, however gym-honed the figure, if you keep hitching-and-adjusting, it shows a lack of self-confidence, a lack of comfort with the body, and a lack of sexuality. And greying nylon period knickers must be a turn-off for any man.
About halfway through the first half, Lampard looked vaguely like scoring. Ended up on the floor in front of the goal. 99% of people in the pub were exclaiming in various states of frustration or applause-born-from-hope. She peered uncomprehendingly at the screen, wondered what the fuss was about. Occasionally, she applauded. I'm not sure what she was applauding at. She spent most of the time texting. When she did look at the screen, her face registered incomprehension.
At one stage, after Rooney had been sent off, a Portuguese player tackled an England player. More in hope than expectation or judgement, I banged my lighter on the table "Send him off!" She turned and glared quizzically, puzzledly at me. I think, because I was wearing a dress and sipping wine she assumed I was a WAG dragged unwillingly along as it was the only way to spend time with my man. She was drinking a pint. Well, I say, drinking. She looked as if she had never held a pint glass before, had never tasted real ale. she didn't get halfway through it. "Hey, if I wear a low cut top, feign interest in football and drink pints, I'll score a shag..."
Also in my peripheral vision was another woman. She was on halves. You really couldn't miss her, because she was wearing figure-hugging scruffy jeans. And, without being cruel, she had two figures to hug. The largest behind I have ever seen on a white twenty-something non-obese woman. She was there for the football. You could tell. All the time she was in my peripheral vision during the match, her eyes were focused in complete concentration on the screen, as she reacted with hope and frustration to the vicissitudes of the game. At half time Jimmy invited her to sit at our table. Shyly, she declined, explaining that if she sits, she can't see the screen, not being tall. She was my height, so I smiled and said "I know what you mean..."
I scrutinised her closely. Not beautiful, a far from great figure. Cheap comfortable clothes. Accent far from posh. Self-contained. Poised. Absorbed in the football. Comfortable with who she was. not wanting to seek attention. Not on the pull. Not signalling "I'm desperate, shag me!". I thought, I bet she attracts a lot more genuine blokes than Miss Purley Facelift.
Look, if you're not interested in football, it's okay. You don't have to do what the media tells you to do. They're only trying to sell newspapers, reap the advertising revenue, exploit you. There are plenty of pubs advertising "Football-free zone" - it's good business to do so. There are plenty of football-free zones. You can make your home a football-free zone. We missed the penalties (and so did Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher) because we were scurrying across the piazza for a seven o'clock curtain - although Jimmy discovered a man with a van and a TV set so we separated; in a bizarre reversal of behaviour Jimmy could spotted hanging around on Floral Street...The piazza and the pedestrianised area between the Tube and Piazza were crowded. Partly with people scurrying, like us, for a seven o'clock curtain there or elsewhere, but also with people. Not watching the football.
