Nothing crystalizes the passing of time quite like the World Cup. Was South Africa and its torturous vuvuzuela soundtrack really four years ago? I recall watching USA 94 as a starry eyed ten year old and calculating that I would have just turned 30 by the time the 2014 World Cup rolls around. How was this allowed to happen? Will 2034 and my 50th year arrive in an equally head spinning hurry?
Of course, by then it’ll probably be the Pepsi Cola Interplanetary Cup. Sepp Blatter, still ruling FIFA utilising Futurama like head in a jar technology will have awarded hosting rights to Saturn, in exchange for its rings. Human life won’t have actually figured out a way to survive in temperatures of -178 Celsius sans oxygen yet, but Sepp will worry about that closer to the time.
For the adult, World Cups are a wonderful excuse to spend otherwise barren summer evenings drinking beer and watching overpaid and oversexed men chase a football around for our amusement. In that respect I have always felt it ironic that big sporting events can see a nation’s calorie / alcohol intake quadruple in a single evening. In your formative years, World Cups are rites of passage. They inform your football tutelage on an educational and emotional level.
I would bet most people reading this could draw a line through their footballing existence with the World Cup as a kind of bookmark for the journey into fandom. The first World Cup I can recall was Italia 90. During the 1989-90 season I began to take a casual interest in football, which was a kind of lingua franca in my household. I was aware of it and I enjoyed watching it. Though at this stage, I hadn’t really decided on a team to support, with Arsenal and Spurs both competing for my affections through family ties.
It was watching England’s progression to the semi-finals, David Platt’s euphoric extra time volley against Belgium, the woos and gasps of the large clutch of adults I watched that England v Germany penalty shootout with, that convinced me that I should decide on my club devotion. I became suddenly aware of the intoxicating and thrilling emotion of sporting allegiance. Prior to that, I remember enjoying football players, but Italia 90 taught me that the true thrill of the game lies in emotional attachment to football teams.
Gascoigne’s tears in Italy were almost a horrible glue that bound me to the dark side. But ultimately, I chose to support Arsenal. The performance of a certain Anders Limpar in that summer’s Makita tournament stole my heart away. I had made a tentative start to my playground football career as a left winger and I subsequently discovered the talents of Rocastle and Merson as well. That’s right, I fell in love with George Graham’s Arsenal because of their flair! And I was instantly rewarded with a saunter to the league title in my maiden season.
Club life was very good to me after that, I saw Arsenal lift a few more trophies, enjoyed some successful trips to Wembley and became an Arsenal season ticket holder with my mother. Like most boys yet to become acquainted with booze and cigs, I was a keen player as a youngster. It’s amusing in retrospect how much my playing “career” genuflected what I was watching. I’m certain that I was unaware of that corollary at the time, but as the early 90s gave way to the mid 90s, I gradually began to move back down the field.
I drifted into a defensive midfield position and, for some reason (!) by 1994 I had started to play centre half with the Adams and Bould partnership at the peak of its powers. (Strangely, in about 1997, I gradually drifted forward again). Arsenal’s defensive masterclass had won them the Cup Winners Cup in 1994 and I was batting my eyelids at the game’s more disciplined arts. England of course, did not qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the USA.
Looking back, this was pivotal to my football education. Having spent 4 years binding myself to the mast of tribalism, I was able to watch a World Cup with complete neutrality. One of the most functional Brazil sides in history lifted the trophy that summer and it was their conservatism that somehow captured my imagination. I became besotted with George Graham’s Arsenal because of their flair players, yet it was the defensive talents of a World Cup winning Brazil side that later fired my imagination. Work that one out!
I guess they reminded me of Arsenal in a way. With the likes of Dunga, Marcio Santos and Aldair minding the back, they relied on their front two of Romario and Bebeto in a manner reminiscent of the Gunners’ reliance on Wright and Merson. There’s a nice symmetry for me that I’ve subsequently built a Brazilian ‘wing’ to my family through personal relationships. I will be in Brazil for the final week of this World Cup (albeit ticketless) visiting my ‘familia Brasileira.’ I’ve slowly been building an affinity with the culture, the language and the domestic football scene for the last couple of years, so there’s some nice poetry to Brazil being the hosts on this occasion.
An England-less World Cup at the age of 10 enabled me to watch the World Cup in a rather ‘pick and mix’ fashion. I was able to enjoy hitherto undiscovered talents from the continent. For some reason, Brazil centre half Marcio Santos (along with Dunga) became my favourite player in that tournament. I followed his career for a little while and when he joined Ajax in 1995, I began the final stage of my induction into my love affair with football.
By this time, Champions League highlights were just becoming a weekly fixture on terrestrial TV. That famous Ajax side kidnapped many an imagination I think. My friends and I christened our Wednesday night 7 a side team ‘Ajax’ and the germ of the ‘Little Dutch’ moniker has its roots in that childhood flight of fancy. If Italia 1990 honed my tribal instincts, USA 94 allowed me to flourish as a football fan.
I guess, in reductive modern parlance, you could say it nurtured the ‘football hipster’ in me. Though I have come to despise this term. It has become an unimaginative shorthand for the unthinking. It’s similar to the manner in which ‘chav’ has morphed into a sneering, catch all term for the working class. ‘Hipster’ is now an automated accusation aimed at difference. It’s levied at those guilty of enjoying anything slightly less than mainstream.
I often wonder, in more fogeyish moments, whether ‘da kids’ of today experience the World Cup in quite the same way. With the explosion of the Champions League and football from every crevice of the globe available at the touch of a button, maybe the World Cup has lost some of its innocence for today’s younger, more schooled observer. I wonder if it is still football’s answer to the ‘gateway drug.’ However, my time in football’s classroom is done. I plan to shut the blinds, crack open a few cans and watch my belly grow with each game. Bring it on. LD.
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