The game's gone
Watching the Euros from outside of Europe.
If only for a month, take me back to packed pubs and perfect pints and
DHgate home shirts glowing in the dull evening sunlight.
Vape cocktails hanging around broken benches and
the sooty stench of BBQs in my t-shirt and hair.
Watching midday games on work monitors and whispers of early finishes when
England are on.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
Forever and ever,
Amen.
I’ve always adored international football.
Growing up, I remember being dumbfounded by the staleness of Sven’s 4-4-2.
I clearly remember McClaren’s wet face watching the ball trickle over Scott Carsons’ foot to end our Euro 2008 hopes prematurely.
About fifteen of us looked on in our tiny front room as Lampard’s shot crossed the line against Germany in the 2010 World Cup.
Recent years have been brighter, but disappoint still looms at the back of the bus, waiting to smother us on our short walk home from safety to glory.
Despite all of this, I love watching England. I love being in the pub with the sun on my face. I love the giddy patriotism. I love the conversations about where Trent should play and how Southgate can get the best out of Phil Foden. I know it’ll all come crashing down in disappointment, but I don’t really care. I’m just happy that it happens.
This year, 2024, is different. Beer gardens have been replaced by quiet screens on black beachfronts. The reliability of BBC 1 and ITV have been usurped by terrible WiFi and SuperSport. National tipsiness has been superseded by sober respect.
In the six months that I’ve been travelling the world, no phrase has been more apt that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I have never been much of a patriot, but travelling through Central Europe and East Africa has made it patently clear that, despite everything, we have a good thing going on at home. There is something about an international football tournament that leaves me yearning for my homeland.
In Zanzibar, people like football. In Kenya, people love the premier league. But at the end of the day, it’s mere consumption. Besides from the youth football played on dry patches of scrub, it’s pure entertainment.
At home, football is literally a part of our national identity. Our football pyramid is up there with the N.H.S when it comes to national achievement. I can’t wait to go home and stand in the rain with 20,000 people watching two teams in the third tier battle it out over three points and regional pride. So, with football in our blood, and its consequences in our genes, it might be fair to say that it’s just not quite the same when watched from a tropical island that doesn’t even have a national team recognised by FIFA.
It’s all a little flat.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that I’m talking about an exclusively European tournament while I’m in an African country. I’m certain that football fever would swell around the island like a tidal storm if I was lucky enough to be here for AFCON.
But I’m talking about my experience as an England fan watching the Euros in Zanzibar, and unfortunately, it just doesn’t feel the same.