I have no interest in football or indeed in watching any sport. So I wake up today, Monday 15 July, six am, in a state of ignorance, not knowing the outcome of last night's match between England and Spain in Berlin. Does it matter? In the cosmic big picture, of course it doesn't. And yet there is something poignant about England's football team making it to the first final of a major tournament held on foreign soil ever. I do remember England's win in Wembley in 1966 over West Germany and the symbolic significance of that victory. Have England done it again?
In the case of the semi-final win over the Netherlands, I learned of England's win the next morning on the BBC Radio 4 news, though the match had made it into my subconsciousness. Before discovering this fact, somehow, I already felt that England were through to the final.
Here I am again then, without the information. A quantum event has occurred. A wave/particle probability collapse. The photon can only be a wave or a particle once an observer has peered inside to check the result of the double-slit experiment. I have yet to open the box.
To the rest of the world, the result of last night's match is known. A determined fact. To me, it can still be either.
Either Spain punished England cruelly, winning 4-1. Or it was a well-balanced and exciting match, which England narrowly lost, 2-1 to Spain. Or the match dragged on goallessly into a penalty shoot-out, and again, here England lost. England have 58 years of not winning a major international tournament [Didn't its women's team win something recently? Quite likely, since Transport for London have named a train line after the women's football team. But what they won I couldn't tell you. If I were in a pub-quiz situation, I'd say 'Women's World Cup', but where and when and by how much – don't know."]
So – last night in Berlin, what happened? This situation percolated into my dream; twice I dreamt this, in both cases England won. Don't know the circumstances. A normally weird dream, slightly more memorable than most, and in it twice I pondered on the outcome of a football match which had already finished. Both times I knew in my dream that England had won.
But had they? (Note use of plural pronoun. According the BBC style guide, "Treat collective nouns - companies, governments and other bodies – as singular. There are some exceptions: Sports teams – although they are singular in their role as business concerns (eg: Arsenal has declared an increase in profits).
It is finally time to check. I can't say the suspense is killing me; rather a moment of passing curiosity.
'HEARTBREAK FOR ENGLAND AS SPAIN SCORE LATE GOAL'.
The wave function has collapsed.
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4 comments:
Ha! Even if you're not a keen follower of football, if you were still living in the UK in the seventies, then I bet you watched the famous England v Poland game at Wembley in 1973, if only on TV - the game in which Tomaszewski produced some miraculous saves. (And that was a test of loyalties for many English-born Poles, I guess)
Happy walking and happy blogging!
MK
'English-born Poles'? Or should that be Brits of Polish descent? Do our identities emerge according to which national football teams we support? Personally, I prefer not to take sides whenever England are playing Poland (I suddenly become an Italian supporter - my wife is of Italian descent - or else I support the Czech Republic if Italy are out - great-grandmother was Czech).
As for last night's game - it looks like the real contest here in the UK was who was providing the better commentary: the BBC or ITV.
All of the above said, I’m sure that anyone who had been following England’s progress saw them improving with each game so that they did deserve their place in the final.
So much from this pundit.
Cheers
MK
@ Michał Karski
England Poland match at Wembley - vague memories; Brian Clough calling Tomaszewski 'a clown' and David Coleman referring to Kat-O-Vee-Chee (which seems to have stayed on as the preferred English pronunciation of that city's name).
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