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Enjoy the ride because we may never get to our destination

by Simon Harvey

There’s a point at which the World Cup is enjoyable, fun even. And, depending largely on when you’re reading this, it is, as Norman quite rightly said, right here right now.

Squad selection made, TV adverts rolling, tattered car flags awaving, roly-poly John Barnes rapping, footy cupcakes in every baker’s window, a Panini-fuelled sticker fest in the newsagents and the air full of idle banter, speculation, anticipation and excitement. It’s the best time of all. Personally, I love this bit more than the competition itself. Now is like the week before Christmas, the Friday before the weekend, the second the i-pod kicks in with the first song of a new album . . .  the journey before the arrival.

I regard this as my 11th conscious world cup – being 7 in 1970 means I have vivid memories of that Brazilian team in Mexico but sadly, I cannot say that I have any conscious recollection of 1966 although I am willing to be hypnotized and come up with some subconscious yarn about how I imitated Nobby dancing in our dad’s back room-kind-of-story. Ianyway, I’m thoroughly enjoying the build up to my 11th conscious world cup, the bit where our collective hopes are blossoming and cannot yet be dulled or disappointed. The final destination is still out of reach so whatever it feels like, whether it meets our expectations or not, we can hold on to the warmth of our optimism and still expect great things. All this holds in the last few days before Saturday 12 June and for us in England the 2010 world cup, anytime before 7.29pm on that day, is wonderful and pregnant with possibility.

So sit back and enjoy the maniacal and frenzied branding fest which puts balls on every object in view, which offers world cup deals and goals-for-cash offers on new dishwashers, fridges and flat screen tellies whilst female presenters on those tellies pretend to do countless keepie uppies and multiple headers. People who know nothing about football talk about football as if they know something about it. Magazines whose audience has no interest in football persuade their readers to read contrived features about football-related matters. This will be the most written about world cup in the history of football; fitness updates, betting latest, low-downs on every player in every team – this will be the most blogged, reviewed, texted, skyped and scrutinized football tournament on earth – anything you might need to know to improve your armchair experience is provided for you somewhere floating in a sea of cheap booze and barbecue food – it’s just great.

Back in 1974 I had a special edition of the Radio Times adorned with Jimmy Hill and Billy Bremner and a Shoot wallchart; that was it.

This year I bought my daughter seven magazines each rammed to their plastic tops with free gifts. Match of the Day magazine earned her max respect with a free baseball cap, wallchart, stickers and a blow-up ball. But the follow up issue of Match went down well too with tattoos, mega boom sticks and world player posters.

But I’m okay on the accessories front, I’m sitting pretty with my Vuvuzela and no, not the free, tacky Sun version which needs assembling. Back in October I bought a job lot of the African horns from a franchisee and gave them to every member of the family as Christmas presents. They regarded me with derision when I told them they were the must-have present of Christmas 2009 which no-one yet knew about but now I’m the dog’s b because they’ve seen them all on the telly.

Worst world cup promotion of the competition so far goes either to Pieminister with its Fabio Pie, containing British beef and Italian sausage, or the campaign by BPEX (which represents the pig levy payers in England responsible for pushing pork-based products in our pubs and restaurants) which is headed: “Score with Pork”.

One prominent feature of the build-up this year is the proliferation, nay infestation, of former England managers who have fled the Thursday afternoon post office pension queue to offer pearls of wisdom on chat shows or trouser the fee for a badly-acted cameo in a TV ad for crisps, beer and satellite broadcasters. Why don’t they go one step further and dig up former managers and prop them in front of the cameras imaging what they might offer us in terms of gems of retro wisdom. What would Sir Alf have made of Ledley King’s knees, for example?

Note to self: idea for a Channel 5 sporting detective drama called Capello and Ramsey . . .deceased.  Cashing in the current retro feel the programme is loosely-based on the cult 1960s/70s TV show Randall and Hopkirk . . .deceased. In a world cup special episode Capello manages the England team and gives a pre-Algeria team talk in the dressing room whilst overlooked by a white-suited Sir Alf Ramsey, arms folded, nodding sagely, whom only Capello can see because Alf’s dead. With a nod, Sir Alf is dispatched to the Algerian dressing room to listen in on tactics. When he re-materialises in the England dressing room and whispers in the England manager’s ear, Capello switches to an alternative system much to the bemusement of the England players. Capello insists on the changes, England win 3-0 and on the way back into the dressing room after the match Frank Lampard says to Capello: “Nice one boss that extra chap in midfield really kyboshed those desert foxes – how on earth did you do it!” to which Capello shoots a wry smile towards Alf at the dressing room door and replies: “With a little help from The General!”. All the players shoot quizzical looks at the empty space where Capello is seeing Sir Alf, throw back their heads and laugh loudly as the credits roll . . .

Best of all so far there’s been a wonderfully retro feel to this year’s build up; wall charts, wall charts with tabs, wall charts with sticky mini scarves and, best of all, the return of the Esso World Cup Coin Collection. Every world cup I dig out my 1970 Mexico original to dust down the coin contents stuck into the cardboard brochure. This year, just after I noticed that Alan Ball has taken on excessive amounts of rust – I think he was nearest a radiator leak back in 2003 – I pay for petrol and spot Esso’s slimmed down 2010 version. The company’s press release says they wanted to bring back happy memories for drivers old enough to remember the 1970 version. What joy!  Back in the 70s I was brought up in a car-less family but when my uncle, the travelling sales rep, arrived for a catch-up and emptied his pockets of several hundred wrapped Esso world cup coins I almost fainted – who says oil companies can’t spread joy and happiness at the same time as ruining the planet?

But all this frivolity will come to an end. At 7.30pm on 12th June I’ll have to put down these childish things and remember why I’m staring at the telly wearing my lucky football pants with a flag of St George wrapped round my shoulders shouting encouragement at Wayne Rooney. At 7.30pm everything changes and England’s competition will be underway. An entirely different scenario will take over and, regardless of success or failure; it’s a special kind of suffering with which we’re all agonisingly familiar. So blow your horns, keep the wall charts updated, eat the worldcup pies washed down with beer from the chilled world cup mugs whilst sitting in the blow-up world cup chair, for soon, perhaps very soon,  we have to put it all away again.