It was ethereal, being in a crowded bar, the table we sat at ringed with wet glass bottoms and chipped lacquer, the beermats stiffened with spillage and age, as curly as the sarnies at a crap cricket tea. Never away from the field of battle has the St George's Cross been so revered and so badly hung. As a metaphor, it signalled the quality of the game even before Sam Matterface uttered the first condescending word.
The week started brightly and finished a damp squib, much like the football. I did work from home, but then had to drive to Birmingham on Wednesday for a meeting; scheduled for June 21st but then hurriedly brought forward due to circumstance. The drive was long and warm. I stopped for a McDonalds at one of the worst drive-thru's this side of Wales, the Kettering one which seems to purposefully grease the inside of its paper bags prior to any of the lukewarm fare being introduced. In my case, their bacon and brown sauce bap, which looks so delicious in the TV advert, yet tastes remarkably plastic and hurried in the flesh. The hash brown was a globular desiccated thwap of fatty potato and beige bits. The coffee tasted as innocuous as a Drinan shot.
Meeting attended (it was a contradiction of management speak and utter futility which was stretched out for five hours so we could have a half-hour lunch), I left the great Citadel of flattened vowels and young men in Peaky Blinder caps and drove home at 3.30pm, braving the school kick-outs and the 4x4 Mercs picking scruffily dressed little kids in grey jumpers and grey shorts up from primary schools. I went the scenic route home to avoid the A-roads after Cambridge, and came back via Clare and then Bures and Nayland and Stoke-by-Nayland, adding a good fifty miles to the journey but being rewarded by sighting three Red Kites and two possible Peregrines as the country lanes entwined me back to base.
By Thursday, I was fielding calls from Tel, anticipating the rush for the Friday night game by pre-ordering food, drinks and table in the pub, also predicting the rain that was to come and getting us inside the four walls rather than sheltering under the Coke umbrella and squinting through the drizzle at Harry Kane's hat-trick. He was confident of victory. Heavy victory at that.
Were Tel to be honest, he doesn't like the Scots. From Robert the Bruce ("summink ter do wiv spiders, just sounds like a big girls blarse to be 'onest") to Sir Andy Murray ("sour-faced chip-on-'is-shoulder sweaty jock ingrate. E'd s'port any country playin' against England, yet give 'im a gong an' 'e's straight up the front at the gates"), Tel's proud claim is that he's yet to meet a scotsman he trusted. A sizeable chunk of our winnings went on various England goalscoring bets. The pre-match talk, emboldened by jingoism and pints of San Miguel, was based on Tel's experiences at Wembley in 1981 when he witnessed John Robertson's penalty winner ("never a pen, eiver, bleedin' Archibald dived, the cheatin' dog) and various tam-o-shantered pissed Scots in delirium ("stank the place out. That smell of deep-fried sweat and stale Tennants and weein' in fans' coat pockets").
The food came out. Jamie the landlord was offering a traditional English feast, subtitled on the menu as "The National Anthem". It included pizza, kebabs and chicken curry. We had fish'n'chips with peas and a tartare sauce so vinegary it could have pickled whole sheep. Tel dipped a stray chip in the tartare and then, face pinched, reached for the Heinz ketchup bottle.
We were joined by Tel's mate Rob, his brother-in-law Chris and Chris' mate Lee. Lee and Chris work together as builders. They came dressed in retro England shirts from Euro '96, the tepid blue/grey one we wore, and lost in, against the Germans. They both had the kebab and chips. Rob had the burger'n'chips, a tower in a bun which held everything but the kitchen sink. He deliberately deconstructed it so he could pick out any offending bits, like the gherkins and the tomatoes, draping them artlessly on the side of his plate so they resembled the clocks in a Dali painting.
The teams came out just as Chris and Tel were arguing about the merits of picking Tyrone Mings as centre-back. Chris outed himself as an Ipswich fan by saying "'e never played in central defence for us, 'e was a left-back under McCarfee". The Villa fans at work on Wednesday had similar misgivings. But they didn't connect him with Ipswich. To them, he was a Bournemouth player all his natural. I didn't argue with them. No point. You'd think they'd signed the new Maradona in Buendia, the way they went on. Tel said he'd preferred Mings to Cresswell. "More afletic" he said, to no-one in particular.
The first half was a bore. Folks who'd groaned at Stones' miss suddenly became sullenly quiet. The clamour for fags and pints became greater. Few could watch the telly. It was that insipid. It reminded me of watching the Town on I-follow.
Half-time and predictions of a massacre to rival Culloden were being hastily revised. People who thought being 4-0 up at half-time was a cop out now reasoned that a 2-0 win was acceptable after all. The Scots played quite well. I didn't dare say that in front of Tel, but it was the considered opinion in the queue for the urinals. The ping pong balls were being deluged with piss. There was a noticeable absence of anyone playing for Scotland at their end. This was the only likely thrashing we'd see all evening.
The final whistle bought jeers, catcalls and the considered opinion that Southgate was a chicken and Harry Kane unfit. The rank and file trooped out of the pub to buy kebabs and chips in the takeaway down the road. Chris, Lee and Rob were being picked up by Rob's daughter Leah. Tel and I reflected over brandies, him bitterly, me in deflation. The pub became quiet. Then it emptied more and we were the last customers at 11pm, sitting with half-finished drinks in scratched glasses, the bunting flapping listlessly as the doors opened to allow someone else to leave.
Mrs Tel arrived at 11.20pm just as they called for glasses and the cleaning-up began behind the bar. She looked trim in her YSL polo shirt, leather jacket and black jeans. She drove us home, chatting animatedly about their prospective weekend in Braintree (yesterday and today, lunch today at some carvery in Rayne) and about watching some Ealing comedy on 'Talking Pictures' that she hadn't seen since she was a kid. Tel drowsily joined in the conversation, half-hearted, wan, like the England performance earlier. She dropped me at my road and kissed me farewell. He stuck an obligatory arm out the passenger-side window in goodbye. And then they were gone.
We're meeting at another pub on Tuesday. I'm being collected at six. This is the pub we were in when we watched the away game v Bolton in the play-off's in 2000. It's also the pub where we watched England beat Sweden in the World Cup. Perhaps we should have used it on Friday? But, as Tel said, no good in using up the luck on a nothing sort of game. If only this HAD been a nothing sort of game.
Still, nearly a month until the proper footy starts again.......
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