It's Leaving Home - World Cup In Mallorca

The World Cup draw has been made. We now know that from 12 June until 11 July, no one will be going on holiday, for that is the period during which England will play their first game and ultimately the final. If only.

I have never quite bought this argument that people don't go on holiday because of the World Cup; it's always seemed like a convenient excuse for those inclined to talk of bad times to be able to say that times are bad - all because of some football. True, there are some who prefer the comfort of their living-room sofa and the contents of their fridge and drinks cabinet to mucking in with fellow fans in a bar, but there are an awful lot who prefer the bar for football watching, wherever it is - back home or on holiday. With the hotels being even keener to keep the football watchers in the bars within their own several walls next summer, there will be nowhere in Mallorca where the football will not be available - and it will all be at convenient times; England's qualifiers will take place at 8.30 in the evening or four in the afternoon, Spanish time.

The bar is the football terrace writ small, and with no restrictions on alcohol. It is the place of group tribalism, where the irrational hatred of mostly all teams England encounter is given high volume and much voice by wearers of the latest replica kit and bearers of high-sized shorts: Germany, the war, losing penalty shoot-outs and differences of opinion of a sun-lounger nature; Argentina - Rattin, Galtieri, Maradona and Simeone; France - because of Henry and because they're French; Australia - because they normally beat England at any other sport; Portugal because they always beat England and Ronaldo is a cheating bastard; Ivory Coast because Drogba's a cheating bastard; Italy because they're all cheating bastards; even Spain now, because they are no longer the great cockers-up as England still are. In the first round, the USA will be despised because they've all got too much money and caused the banking crisis, the Algerians will be damned because they're Muslims, the Slovenians will be the object of derision because Slovenia is a small country that no one had heard of until a few years ago and everyone confuses with Slovakia, another small country no one had heard of until a few years ago. There's always some reason.

Then there's the opportunity for a bit of light-hearted violence. On holiday during the World Cup makes this all the more convenient with competing nations represented in-resort - Germans, Danes, Dutch, Italians, French, Swiss; doesn't really matter which, they're all foreign, after all. And there's the chance to parade in the streets and instruct the locals as to some choice but limited English vocabulary: F, C, W, take your pick, or even put them in combination. The chance, too, to drape flags of St. George from hotel balconies, flags identifying some small part of England, announced to passers-by - Runcorn, Peterborough, Dagenham.

And as for the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish (north and Republic), there is no excuse to stay at home, as there's nothing to watch anyway, except England hopefully being stuffed. So, they'll be heading for Mallorca, along with the England supporters about whom there will be alarm among the local authorities which will try and impose new restrictions on bars, which will issue warnings as to fans sleeping on beaches and causing general chaos. And they will, as usual, get it wrong because actually there never is that much chaos, if any. Despite all the foregoing, there never is much by the way of trouble, just football fans out for a good time, a few of the boys' bevvies, watching the footy in the sun. World Cup on holiday. They'll be flocking in - whatever some might say to the contrary. Oh, and if on 11 July, by some miracle ... .


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HrSN7176XI.

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