It is the thing no soccer fan can ever do.
Picking a team to root for is not only a lifestyle choice, it’s a lifetime one. And often, we don’t pick. It’s done for us, by ancestry, birth or some other large and insurmountable circumstance.
And so we cheer, and so we suffer, and so it goes. The one thing we are not allowed to do is call it off. Our team is our team, and we must accept whatever woe and pointlessness they chronically inflict on our yearning souls. Especially now, with the World Cup less than one short week away.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Five or six generations ago, somewhere in Surrey, England, south of Ye Olde London Towne, lived a member of the local constabulatory whose surname was Knight. All I shall ever know about Constable Knight is that he existed, and that I am his straight, direct, blood-line descendent.
In truth, I have relatives all over the British Isles – in England, Scotland and Ireland. But my people have been in Canada (or the States) for at least four generations on all sides. I am as Canadian as one can be – but that doesn’t help me, of course, come the World Cup.
I spent a few summers in London as a kid. I adore the place – and I discovered soccer there. The idea of every town having a team, big leagues and little leagues, and the same game being played everywhere was irresistible to me. Yeah, I know Canada has basically the same set-up in hockey. But hockey doesn’t have promotion and relegation, and cup competitions where you, me and a nine-piece rhumba band could theoretically earn a match with the Stanley Cup champions. Soccer does, and I love it forever for that.
So I picked an obscure team in the English Fourth Division to cheer for (Forza Port Vale!), and settled into a happy and largely soccer-free life in the colonies. Until Toronto FC came along, I was actually a paid soccer writer who didn’t have a stadium to go to.
So I support Port Vale, Toronto FC, Canada … and England.
Oh, England. Sigh.
A lot has changed in my life these past few months. In recent times, I have made a conscious move away from grinding frustration, choosing to embrace the things I love in life – regardless of how broke or out on my own that can frequently leave me. I feel done with struggle in my life. I have a new love, a second home town, and a huge amount of joy and inspiration I want to share with anyone who gets within ten feet of me.
And, despite whatever rules of fandom have bound us all to misery since time and the game began, I find my heart no longer includes any link at all to the team that usually wrecks my dreams when World Cup time rolls ‘round.
To paraphrase Lyndon Baines Johnson, when he looked out at the ruins of 1968 and could no longer stomach being the most powerful man in such a terrible world:
“I will not seek, nor will I accept, another World Cup as a fan of the English national soccer team.”
England! The nation that gave the world soccer, and never learned a thing about it since. A place that feels it rules by right, and is stuck hopelessly behind the global soccer curve. A place that did actually win one World Cup, and took the triumph as confirmation of everything it had actually been wrong about, before, during and ever since.
Yeah, I know. They went abroad and hired Fabio Capello as coach, and the guy is the goods, and he’s not buying into the old crap, and they’re a real soccer team now. Too late and sorry, guys. It’s still too much of the same old same old for me.
I am so tired of watching you bozos half-ass your way past Paraguay and Trinidad, only to get iced by Portugal on penalty kicks. If I’ve got to go through all that, let me at least do it with some guys my heart can believe in.
One more round of “Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard can’t play together in the centre of midfield,” with the gawdamn tabloids inventing scandals and the WAGS (wives and girlfriends) flaunting and flutzing their way across an impoverished African nation? Pass.
In the past couple of days, I’ve actually come to realize I hope you get pasted by the States in your opening game on Saturday. The soccer fan in me – who is less and less patient with the England fan in me – sees huge benefits for the global game if the Yanks drop the Brits. A changing of the guard, if you will. A desperately needed echo of revolutionary times.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d be an Englishman over an American any time. But English soccer needs an almighty kick in the caboose, and I don’t see their other first-round opponents – Algeria and Slovenia – packing a big enough boot for that much butt.
On a more selfish level, I want to have an exultant, life-affirming month of soccer. Chaining my heart to this same, grinding, overly self-important bunch of overrated under-achievers feels, frankly, like abuse.
So – I’m out. Breaking the chains. Releasing England’s footballling finest to find their fate without me.
I know. Big hairy deal, right? Who actually gives a sideways squid in a sluggish sea what team the Knight kid is cheering for? Some of you, I hope – and I’ll tell you very soon.
The deeper point is – maybe being a fan doesn’t have to be a life sentence after all. Maybe there actually comes a point where the same old same old is simply too unsatisfying to be sustained.
I do not want England to win this World Cup. I want England to be embarrassed in their opening game.
I am no longer an England fan. I … am … free!
Any of the rest of you sons of St. George want to come along?
Onward!