Thirteen things you need to know about the world cup

Thirteen Things about The world cup as seen here in England Every day at the moment, there are three football matches to see. Once you get past the first round, the rate of matches will drop off, but the whole thing goes on for about 5 weeks, therefore it is hard to ignore. Many of the matches at the moment are being shown on the BBC, the anchor person for these programmes is Gary Linekar who is a former England hero of football himself. I think he spends the rest of his time sun bathing, since he is turning a kind of deep orangy brown colour! If you read English newspapers or watch the sports news here, you could be forgiven for thinking that England only need one player, and will only win any given match if that one player plays. When that player injured himself a few weeks ago, they almost went into mourning as if that one player had died! At about 10.30 each night both of the terrestrial TV channels with rights to show the world cup have highlights programmes showing exactly the same goals at exactly the same time. Many people in England have taken to flying several St Georges flags outside their houses (this is not something people do all the time), some either have little flags flying from their car windows. These flags often fly off of the cars and can be found by the sides of the roads (probably for recycling purposes). Hubby has spent all week wondering what time to finish work today. The match starts at 5pm (England v Trinidad and Tobago) and he wouldn’t want to miss it. I on the other hand intend to leave work when the match starts because I think I will be the only one on the road by then and will therefore get home in double quick time. Does this make me unpatriotic? The wives and girlfriends of footballers are extremely thin, glamorous beings. They are following their menfolk around Germany as of course they should. Tabloid newspapers use up much of the space not taken with the Wayne Rooney (will he play or won’t he play) saga to fill with stories of their sunbathing and drinking! Avid fans of world cup football should have something called a ‘world cup wall chart’, which they place in a prominent position in their living quarters. This is so a record can be kept of all results and discussions can take place about them. These discussions take place at half time and between matches! So far, even though Arsenal have signed less new players than Chelsea, the new arsenal signings are playing better and scoring more goals then the Chelsea ones (money isn’t everything you know!) The world cup is now interfering with my viewing of big brother, still I have the feeling I am not missing all that much, especially as the BB highlights shows can be watched again later, usually at the same time as the football highlights, but even hubby doesn’t want to watch quite that much football! One of teen son’s friends lives next door to someone displaying 2 very large Brazil flags in their windows. These people are apparently not Brazilian and have probably never been to Brazil. The thing about people from the UK is this, if you come from Scotland or Wales, you very likely will not support England as a team even if you happen to live in England. I guess if I was Scottish and didn’t want to support England I would support the favorites: Brazil. In 1966 England won the World Cup, this is 40 years ago and therefore is too long ago. When we are not having actual matches to watch therefore, all the TV talk is about 1966! I just wish people would get over it, but it seems many of them can’t help it! From all this, you might think I don’t actually like football, actually I do but it does the men in my life no harm for me to keep a slightly cynical edge going! When it is all over, we will have the TV silly season (if this isn’t it) and then there really will be nothing to watch! Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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