International competition

Now you could be a football fanatic that spends his Saturdays at the local following your child hood favourite, or you could be adamantly opposed to watching a bunch of over paid big kids kick a ball around a field. Neither of course is relevant when discussing patriotism as we are all adamant supporters of our home nation, so it is to no surprise that fan and foe alike unite under one flag to back our boys as they attempt restore our once renowned reputation as the dominant footballing nation of the world.

In recent competitions we have failed to reach even the final stages, many men were left with tears in their eyes as we were (without doubt) robbed of what could have been a game changing goal in the opening half against Germany, during the last world cup. After going two goals down to the exceedingly strong German side, Matthew Upson pulled one back for us only five minutes after their  second , merely a minute later Frank Lampards lob bounced off the bar and obvious to everyone in the stadium other than the match officials, across the line. Arguably this could have turned the tides of the game, as our boys in red had seemed to find their fighting spirit but were clearly disheartened by the injustice that had just occurred. We went on to lose the match four to one and subsequently were out of the cup.

Regardless of the terrible outcome, for the few brief weeks we were involved, despite a few disappointing performances, I’d never felt quite so at home in such a small pub full of large, balding, red faced men, uncharacteristically smiling at strangers and chuckling away with each other. An ocean of red and white tops bearing the three blue lions, which we know and love as the symbol of our proud country, neither the pub nor landlord is likely to have ever seen so many punters at once in all its years of trade. The feeling of togetherness as we all cheered and moaned in unison was quite surreal to say the least. For just moment I was the brother of a middle aged builder, he jumped up, shouted and bear hugged me before laughing and turning back to the screen to simply scream “come on boys”.

It’s obvious to me the lack of confidence people now have in our once admired national squad, just as obvious as the new and exciting young talent we have coming through the ranks in the form of marauding full backs Micah Richards, Kyle Walker and Phil Jones, the young but highly rated jack Wilshere in midfield and the surging strikers Daniel Sturridge and a promising but not yet proven Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin. These boys alone have given me a lot of hope for our future in international footballing competitions; I don’t use the term boys in any derogatory way as most of them are younger than myself. This comes as slight relief with the 2012 euros just around the corner.

We’ve laughed and cheered at our success; we’ve screamed and cried over our failures. This great game ultimately provides us with whirlwinds of emotion, some welcomed and some that makes us want to burry our heads in sand. So without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, I state that there is nothing that could bring two complete strangers together with such passion as a chance for our great nation to prove themselves against the rest of the world, together, under one banner.