We're a funny lot. The English. (Strictly speaking I class myself as British not English, but that's a whole other debate). What has really brought the whole `English' thing home has been the World Cup. I timed a recent trip back to the UK partly to catch some of the tournament in a decent time zone, partly to bookend the visit with weddings at either end of my stay. At the time of writing, and now back in Hong Kong, we're still in with a shout playing a brand of glorious mediocrity. But, hell, if we win you won't see me complaining about artistic merit.
However, it's the whole grey area between national pastime and obsession that gets me. See, I love football. Always have, always will. And no doubt the overall tone of the piece will reflect this bias. But it's the whole world-stops-for-a-month forty-years-of-hurt tabloidia that I had kind of forgotten about while out in Asia. I'm sure Brazil, Italy and Togo have their own exotic flavour of mass hysteria. But returning to the UK for the first time in six months felt like the World Cup had moulded the nation into a hyperactive child - full of excess energy, ok in small doses, often irrational and prone to mood swings.
Planet Football rotates on its axis a full orbit every four years, and I wonder whether any other English-speaking nation has this scale of detachment from the real world. It may promote itself as a single global shared experience but the event morphs into different beasts everywhere. Nationalism takes on a respectable and acceptable face, where implicit racist overtones about Johnny Foreigner are taken as read. It's a time when Iran feels comfortable having a go at the Americans on equal terms; where defence and attack over 90 minutes has nothing to do with military might. An all-embracing, come-as-you-are invitation, whether you are friend or foe in diplomatic circles.
So when I was told in advance that Hong Kong goes crazy World Cup time I was interested to see how this measured up. It's different. You're as likely to see hundreds of St George crosses hanging from local tenement buildings as you are running into the local branch of the Saudi Barmy Army. But Hong Kong has its own way of doing things. The play hard mentality has only served to support the late night drinking establishments stacked with TVs, invaded by expats. Still, football fever is not a living, breathing 24-hour constant. The papers and the TV are not engulfed in football-related recipes or chatter on the footballers' wives and girlfriends. Aside from the English, the Australians, Swedes and Japanese are well represented, but I'm yet to see Czech, Ghanaian or Ecuadorian flags hanging from balconies. True, the local team isn't getting to any World Cup any time soon so no surprise that Becks has a huge fan base. But Hong Kong falls short on some of the most endearing nonsense. Still, at least it's a far cry from my last World Cup when living in the US: the old `football'/ `soccer' vernacular complaint; the "this ain't no proper competition coz we're doing real well and Americans don't even like the game"; the "2-to-zip" commentary.
No, it's all different in England. Stepping out of Heathrow airport on that cool Friday morning, there it was. The white van with its cross of St George. Home. For good or ill there was something reassuring about it. So too later was passing the 60-year old draped in England tattoo and tank top; someone you know has seen or been a few things in his time. Flags on cranes, flags on baby buggies, flags scattered across council blocks. Home.
"There's nothing like a World Cup to unite a nation," so I heard on the telly. Well, strictly speaking that's too inclusive. My mum wasn't watching. In fact I can probably count dozens of her cronies that were quite put out by the change in viewing time of Emmerdale. And, in reality, I could have entitled this piece `Four Weddings and a Football Tournament' as there were two other weddings going on which both fell smack bang in line with England's first game, which is hardly surprising given that talk of Munich, metatarsals and Michael Owen was not amongst the chatter of the middle-aged Nigerian women dominating those proceedings.
Still, the mood was more pervasive than in Hong Kong. Everyone becomes an expert - mums, dads, football haters. The cynic would call it a passionless knowledge; not lacking passion for your national team, of course, more the sport - like a painting by numbers episode of `Faking It'. But the interest was infectious and with more legs than `Henmania 2006'. Come mid-August when the Championship kicks off the summer fan base would have started to fritter away with the dying embers of the sunshine. But they'll be back when next needed.
And as I say, my trip wasn't all about football as I returned for two weddings. Fine occasions they were too (and both timed to avoid England kick-off times). I've fond and less fond memories of both Wandsworth and Windsor from times gone by. But it felt good this time, and ironically surrounded by characters I knew at the time of the hand of God and later Waddle's skied penalty. And in a way reconnecting with long-held school and university friends (and family) was like another form of the full immersion, the connection, the enjoyable nonsense; people that are more than just some late-night summer pub experience miles away from home every four years. Whether or not football really is coming home, Two Weddings and a Football Tournament certainly felt homely to me.
