World Cubs Fever

From today's Naperville Sun.....

Never thought of myself as a football pundit, but as you'll see, in Naperville anything is possible...

I’ve probably been more excited than I should have been about the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup. After all, I’m not American and I’d never even heard of the competition until this year. But I found myself caught up in the thrill of a local team winning for a very particular reason. My team hasn’t won anything since I was nine years old.

I’m talking about World Cup football, yes, football, not soccer – I may have lived here for three years but I’m still English. I’ve been living under false hopes of another win for most of my life. If they’d never won at all I probably wouldn’t have thought about it, but surely if they could do back in 1966 they could do it again? Look at the Blackhawks.

I like football, or soccer as you insist on calling it. The rules are fairly simple, it doesn’t take too long and you don’t have to mount a full scale musical at half time to wake the audience up.

Every four years I’ve watched our boys in vein. I’ve watched in schools while teaching, in rowdy British pubs and once in an Italian hotel. The fact that our first game this time was against the USA seemed an amazing co-incidence since I now live here. That I ended up watching that game in a faux British pub in Louisville, Kentucky of all places was even more absurd.

It was like being in a negative of an old photograph. We were the only Brits in the place. When England scored my husband and I were two tiny voices cheering politely at the back. When the Americans scored and we were glum, their screaming raised the roof.

If England had been playing America at any other sport I would have no doubt we’d have lost and would probably be cheering you all on. But football is our game. We’re supposed to be the best. From what I can make out here in Naperville, only school girls play soccer, so how come your team can still draw one all?

On Friday we decided to watch the second game against Algeria in Quigley’s. As I suspected there weren’t too many Algerian fans, just a handful of English and some English fans with American accents. The most exciting thing about the match was the veggie wrap I enjoyed while watching it. Another miserable game we should have won easily. In case you think I’m being less than patriotic, you should read what the British press has to say.

Although I guess I’ll always support the underdog, because that’s what we British do, over here in the States I feel I have a sporting chance. When it comes to baseball, I’m going to support the Cubs, because they’ve got a real chance, right?