Many of my followers will already know that I am English. More often than not I describe myself as British (I’m half Scottish and prefer to say British the majority of the time) however I was born in northern England and when we compete in the World Cup, I’m a very proud Englishman. That is until we go out on penalties, almost tradition in recent decades.
That was until today.
This morning at 4am, July 4th on Australia’s east coast, a bunch of us woke up from our early alarms (to the inevitable anger of those that had work later than morning) and headed to the pool room to watch our nation play on the hostels only television. We played Colombia, a strong team from a football-mad continent. That is never a walk in the park.
It was tense. We looked like we were heading for the win until (there is always an until) Colombia suddenly came to life in the dying minutes. 1-1 led to extra time and then penalties. I grabbed a beer at this point, the time wasn’t a factor considering how on edge I was. My friend on a Facebook status described my situation very well when he posted to his news feed that he was ‘shaking like a shitting dog’ towards the end. It is as accurate as it was funny.
And then we won. I’m still processing this. We really came out victorious on penalties?! This is something I have never witnessed in my life so far, despite plenty of shootouts.
So here I am in the picture, celebrating with a cheap beer at 6am.
I had two more, one with a friend before he dashed to do his days farmwork before I stopped and realised it wasn’t even 8am. I went for a stroll to burn off the energy I had built up and went to a lovely local cafe for breakfast and watched the highlights of the game.
Work tomorrow, another day closer to completing farmwork. But for now, a moment of celebration on a great achievement. I hope everyone is having a great day, I hope my American followers are having a great Independence Day.
It’s great the English can finally celebrate with you!
One Chance to See the World 