Flagging Up Your Allegiences

Travelling up and down the streets of England and you'll be in no doubt where you are: there are Crosses of St George EVERYWHERE (okay, so I could be in Portugal perhaps, a nation which also has the Roman-Palestinian Christian martyr as its patron saint, but bear with me, this is going somewhere). The red cross on a white field seems to have been thoroughly reclaimed from the extreme right, even if nationalistic sentiment blurs things a bit at the edges.

I say up and down the streets of England, but here and there — like the corner of south east London where I live — the rules change slightly. Here is the ethnic and cultural melting pot all the sociology text books talk about, put into practice.

Drive down the streets of New Cross or Peckham or Camberwell and you are just as likely to see Polish flags or Trinidadian flags, Portuguese flags or even the odd Brazilian pennant. My own neighbours, who proudly celebrate Turkish roots, are presenty flying the England flag from their front fence. Two years ago, during Euro2004 it was definitely a different story.

By far the most prevalent non-England flag around is that of Ghana. I'm not sure if this is because Ghana seems to be doing okay and so is picking up a band of well-deserved well-wishers from other African-Caribbean nations (of course it could be that we have tapped into a secret stash of Scotsmen who would rather be seen dead than sport the flag of the Auld Enemy).

However, one thing I have noticed is that — more than any other sporting standard bearers — Ghanaians seem to be hedging their bets. In a reasonable number of examples you will see the horizontal tricolour of the Republic of Ghana flown alongside the Cross of St George. The Ghanaians I've met around here appear distinctly proud of their adopted home and so it seems quite natural for them to select England as an each-way bet. Another one in the eye for the rabid right.

Two more things about the rash of flags, especially those stuck on every other car. First, I'm slightly puzzled about the need to print the word England across the horizontal red stripe: this seems almost tautological, akin to jars of peanut butter that bear the legend: WARNING — THIS PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN NUTS.

And finally, I wonder what all this flag waving is doing for the environment. Someone has worked out that every flag attached to a car is increasing its drag by the equivalent of $2 per hour of driving in extra fuel burned. If England do make it to the final, that's around $80 per flag — and most people have two of them!

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Poll Position Is One Yellow Too Many

A tip for all pub-quiz officionados in the coming months — look out for this question: Which player was booked three times in a World Cup soccer match? Fans of the Socceroos might also be asking a subsidiary: Who told told Graham Poll he knew how to referee a match?

I must admit my English breast had earlier swelled with pride when I heard that it was Brit Poll who has holding the reigns of the vital Croatia v Croatia (sorry, Australia — it's an easy mistake to make) clash in Stuttgart's Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion last night. Someone said to me that they thought it unfair that an Englishman was wearing the blue shirt, considering Australia's ties with the Motherland and all that, but I knew better: the British sense of fair-play and strict attention to detail would shine through. Our man would show the rest of the world's referees how to do it right.

Fat chance. If there was any hint of bias towards the men in Gold and Green it wasn't showing: exactly the opposite in fact, especially the two penalties that never materialised. There was a sense that perhaps Poll had tried to even things up when he allowed Harry Kewell's offside goal which leveled the scores and sealed qualification to the Round of 16 for the Aussies, but that thought had to abandoned in the light of one of the most bizarre examples of umpirical incompetence ever displayed this World Cup.

Dario Simic had been booked for a foul late in the first half, so when the yellow card came out for the second time — at a vital spell of play with the Croatia under pressure — we all gasped when it wasn't followed by the red. And the Croatian defender played on (can you blame him?) as the match got more and more bizarre, with some real end-to-end magic and fireworks.

Note must be made of the goalkeepers' contrasting performance ranging from Stipe Pletikosa's terrier-like grip which held the ball like glue on the Croatian goal line — even as teammates and opponents alike crashed in a heap on top of him — to the incredible fumble which saw the ball bounce out of Socceroo Zeljko Kalac's less-than-sticky mitts and into the back of the Australian net.

On and on the battle went into stoppage time, with Australia clinging on to that vital drawn scoreline. And then — as the seconds ticked away — Poll flashed his yellow at Simic a third time (this time for dissent) followed by the red! Simic was off, albeit with all the rest of the team on their way back to the showers and later the hotel to start packing.

By the way: don't go looking for any of this in the official record. It's simply not there. Even FIFA it seems wants to pretend in never happened.

As the whistle blew the field was in disarray. The Croatians — who lead twice in the course of the game — couldn't believe they were going home empty handed and were either sitting in stunned silence or sobbing quietly (especially, it seems, one alluringly-clad supermodel-type the German TV cameras kept going back to); the Socceroos' supporters were ecstatic — though probably wondering how they were going to explain to the boss back in London how they're were going to be able to do that late shift behind the snug bar on Saturday — and the rest of us were dazed and confused over the spectacle of refereeing par excellence we had just witnessed.

And because of that perhaps us Brits might be a little less eager in future to tell the rest of the world how when we do things, we do them properly ... unless of course you mean a proper stuff up.

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Outsmarted By The Flat-Pack-Four

I may not be much of a footy fan — I don't claim to know the difference between Sheffield Thursday or Charlton United — but you don't need to be a talented TV pundit to get frustrated with the performance of the England soccer side. Their 2-2 draw with Sweden tonight is a case in point. How can IKEA United, with its Flat-Pack-Four system, frustrate the finest sporting line-up that beer and soda sponsorship can buy? With consumate ease, it seems.

Twice, at my bijou pad in sunny south-east London, my family exaulted as the ball bulged in the back of the Swedenish fruit bag, and twice our eyes rolled up as the Norsemen reciprocated.

And you can't indulge in elaborate conspiracy theories as to why an English side managed by a Swede can't beat a Swedish team; we've been underachieving against Sven's home side since before we (apparently) won the World Cup in 1966. Besides, the Swedish physio is English; on that basis, he could at least have sprinkled horse laxative over the Swedes' half-time oranges. With form this mediocre, England have no chance against the likes of Germany, Argentina, Brazil or, it seems, even Team USA!

Still, what should I and my fellow Englanders expect? Our national pastime is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (okay, so this time it was a draw). I'm beginning to think our only hope for this tournament is for Australia's Socceroos to do well, then we Brits can claim that they're just Englishmen by proxy: after all, they have a weird flag, they like copious amounts of beer and we still own their country, don't we?

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Don't Lose Your Shirt ... Or Your House

The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, has told his people to stop betting cows, goats, motorcycles and even houses on the success of their favorite World Cup, teams amid reports of families losing their homes and livelihoods to bookmakers.

The Cambodian national side is one of the weakest on the planet — it's never qualified for the World Cup finals and didn't even bother to enter the competition at all this time round. Nevertheless, the impoverished nation has been swept up by football fever. One of the favorites at the bookies is Japan, Cambodia's biggest foreign aid donor. In the light of the Blue Samurai's result against Australia, it could be a hard year ahead in Phnom Penh.

Since my last entry, I've discovered that t he Socceroo's 3-1 win over Japan should not be too surprising: after all, they do hold the world record for the highest ever score in an international match, beating American Samoa 31-0 at Coffs Harbour, Australia, on April 11, 2001. At least Japan haven't tried the excuse that Ukraine did for their poor showing. The Boys From Kiev say they are being kept awake by amorous frogs croaking outside their Potsdam lakeside hotel. For the record, les Bleus are staying in Aerzen, 160 miles away.

Meanwhile, eyebrows are being raised in Germany over a notable absence on the terraces at Wednesday's Germany v Poland clash. Chancellor Angela Merkel was there, cheering and grimacing with her compatriots as the Manschaft ground on to a last-minute win. But her husband, Joachim Sauer, was nowhere to be seen. Earlier this month, Merkel told Bild am Sonntag that she was a much bigger fan of the game than her reclusive chemistry professor spouse. Of course she would say that; sporting success is good for national politicians. Her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, was never one to shun a chance to big up the beautiful game, in the same way that Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair likes to be seen playing keepy-uppy whenever there are cameras about.

And perhaps we shouldn't read too much into it anyway: Sauer didn't even attend his missus' inauguration in the Bundestag, last November. Makes you wonder how he made it for the wedding.

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She'll Be Right, Mate!

Today is the new Australia Day, the day the Socceroos pulled a blinder in Kaiserslautern. After being down 1-0 to the Asian champions for most of the match, three goals in eight minutes gave the Australians their first ever World Cup win and the prospect of going through to the second round with a simple draw against Brazil.

The match can best be summed up in the unofficial national motto: "She'll be right, mate!" Australia — making their first appearance in the finals for 32 years — made the early running but fell behind after 26 minutes when Shunsuke Nakamura scored a controversial goal. His cross floated over Mark Schwarzer into an empty net although the keeper appeared to have been fouled.

As the minutes ticked away in the second half, Australian fans in the gold and green seemed increasingly crestfallen, especially as Japan piled on the pressure with several exciting breaks. Then, six minutes from time, Tim Cahill levelled the score and booted himself into history as the first Aussie to score a goal in the World Cup. Just five minutes later the second half substitute slotted in a second to snatch victory. The icing on the cake came when fellow sub John Aloisi — the penalty hero of last November's World Cup qualification — completed a remarkable comeback for the 'Roos with a third goal deep into added time.

The impact of the win will take a few hours to settle in back home, where the match was screened late into the cool autumn night. In an unaccustomed bout of self-doubt, before the side left for Europe, most commentators were talking of "two draws and a loss" being a more than satisfactory outcome. As a kid in the Sydney suburbs in the late 1960s — one of the Ten Pound Poms — I quickly learned that my native soccer wasn't really the big sport Down Under anyway: it loses out to Aussie Rules, rugby league and especially cricket. Perhaps now the ordinary Sydneysider and his counterparts in cities across Oz will take slightly more interest in the beautiful game.

There are always sides who suprise in the World Cup; now Australians are wondering just how surprising they can be. Bring on Brazil!

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We're Rubbish ... And We Know We Are

Let's be honest: England are rubbish at sport. There may be 60 million of us, but we can't put together enough people to beat the national sides of opponents whose population wouldn't fill a London borough. We get knocked out of every competition we enter, no matter what the sport and no matter what our part was in giving it to the world. As the major partner in the Davis Cup tennis team, we are humbled by such massive sporting nations as Serbia & Montenegro, Switzerland, Morocco and Ecuador, and currently lie below Luxembourg in the tournament rankings. Despite being the major player in motorsport, there have only been two English F1 champions in two decades (and what's worse the big name is a German!). And in cricket, we get hit out of the ground by teams like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.

Let's be honest: England are rubbish at sport … and we know it. Not that we let anyone in on that fact. English fans — led on by a partisan press — have been banging on for weeks about how England are going to win the World Cup. Then Wayne Rooney gets injured and the nation's real feelings of anguish and self-doubt resurface. But we put on the stiff upper lip and pray for a miracle and it seems our prayers have been answered; Rooney is back on the squad and will play (probably). Then Gerrard hurts his back …

That well-hidden pessimistic streak remains. On the day of England's first World Cup match against Paraguay, you can almost feel the crackle of cynicism in the air. The outer glow is one of self-confidence, but barely hidden there is the nervousness, the deeply-held belief that this will once again be the year that England will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Our most popular football anthem talks about "30 years of hurt" (although since that was written 10 years ago) we've suffered another decade of the black stuff.

So if you see an England supporter, don't be fooled by that confident exterior. Inside, there lurks the heart of a confirmed pessimist. We may just sneak into the second round, but we all fear we won't.

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