Dreadful Nonsense

World Cup Fever has definitely settled in my veins. I'm spending an inordinate amount of time checking scores, reading statistics, keeping an eye on every match and generally being something of a bore to everyone who doesn't really care - and living in Scotland (whose team didn't qualify and who therefore have no interest), that's a lot of people.

However, since Scotland aren't playing, it was then left to the pubs and distilleries around the country to chose an alternative team to get behind, and most of the cannier publicans decided to get behind the Irish squad, due to the fact that, as a nation, we are known to be partial to a tipple or two.

Therefore on Saturday I got up earlier than I would on a weekday, and met my cousin Olivia on the corner of the street. She was still drunk from the night before, and I was already exhausted due to having to entertain a child of 5 for all of the previous day. We walked down to one of the nearest pubs that had decided to become Irish for the duration and were very pleased, but not particularly surprised, to see quite a few others dressed exactly the same as us.

Throughout the match, I kept up a three-way text conversation between my parents, who were watching the match at home in Dublin and my brother, who was watching it from a GAA club in Sydney. We screamed ourselves hoarse for most of the game, alternatively with abuse and praise for both our team and for the Cameroon side. When we finally equalised, I thought I'd go deaf. It was amazing. Also, drinking free cocktails of Guinness and Champagne at 7.30 in the morning added to the delight.

Today, I was slightly gutted to have had to miss the second match because of a heavy workload, thanks to our extended Jubilee weekend. Olivia works with flexi-time and so she was able to get back down to that pub, and we agreed that I would phone her every now and again, and in the meantime follow the match on ireland.com, as they have a minute by minute coverage of all the action on their site. 18 minutes in to the game, I was already bored of pressing refresh every 30 seconds, and so rang her. She answered the phone, and immediately Germany scored. She made me swear not to ring again. We're a very superstitious family.

I therefore held off from ringing until right at the end of extra time (although we kept texting each other at an alarming rate) and, having observed carefully the four minutes added injury time, I rang her phone again to commiserate for a rubbish game and a very disappointing score. She answered the phone, and then immediately the entire pub went mental. Robbie Keane had scored in the last seconds of the game. All I could do was giggle as I listened to the whole pub scream with delight again and again and again as the television replayed the goal from every angle.

Although I obviously have a very uncanny sense of timing, I'm not going through that suspense again. Next Tuesday, I'll be standing side by side with Olivia and screaming as loudly as my dying voice will allow me. My Aunty has sent me some lucky "Ireland 2002" socks from home, and they have to get some wear. Now all I have to do is persuade work to let me have the afternoon off...

This entry was posted on 05 June 2002 at 6:28 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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