Oh What An Atmosphere: Football on holiday

Football on holiday. There is this thing that baffles me slightly. Chanting support for our boys. In bars. Outside bars. Does it somehow permeate the plasma and filter across global satellite communication systems to be relayed above the noise of the vuvuzelas in a South African stadium? Probably not.

“England till I die.” At the clinic next to Foxes, the lady in charge was getting anxious. The noise was such that she couldn’t hear someone on the phone. So she said. “England till I die,” and someone on the end of the phone gagging his or her last. Maybe she should be grateful that the clinic is not next door to a Spanish bar, though possibly she was unnerved by the raucousness of those feared English footy fans – and their ancient reputation. A police car passed, just as a Rooney was launching himself into a one-man Peter Kay conga. “Are you on your way to Yellow, sir?” The police might have asked. “Yellow?” He was English, after all, and a Rooney, to boot. The clinic Oberführerfrau, arms sternly crossed, watched as the police car kept going and watched as it came back and kept going.

Rooneys, Gerrards, the odd (very odd) Crouch, the occasional, nostalgic Beckham, an absence of Heskeys. England versus Slovenia. I felt possibly under-dressed in a sky-blue Man City reminiscent Karl Hogan. Not a red or white for me. “I am the only Slovenian in Alcúdia,” said I in my best Slovenian accent. I used the gag, if you could call it such, once. Unlike the gag from the Rooneys and Gerrards. “Well held,” every time James caught the ball. Ho-de-ho-ho.

Then there are the pints. Hundreds, thousands. Has anyone ever measured the peaks of pint purchase as a game progresses? A graph with game time on one axis and pints on the other, superimposed by another – pints purchased in the immediate aftermath of an England goal. Someone should. I will, if I’m given the grant to do so.

Around The Mile. A party on the Goodfellas terrace, or what looked like a party. Some mascoty beings, wrapped in St George, a white with red cross sun shade over a baby buggy. The passage way by Linekers packed like Wembley Way. Wayne with a mini-Gazza blond look, lacking only a lob, a goal and a dentist’s chair. And a multitude of Rooneys; a potato field of Rooneys.

Football on holiday. Football on holiday in the afternoon sun in Puerto Alcúdia. “Oh what an atmosphere.”

And it was only Slovenia. And it was brilliant.

* Some photos on the HOT Alcudia Pollensa Facebook page.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Kicking Off (Or Not): Why World Cups are dull

Oh dear. How the mighty fall. There will doubtless be some (expats) who have delighted in Spain’s defeat. I have never felt badly towards the Spanish team, though even I found myself willing the clock down against the Alpine dullards. Why is that, do you suppose? During the Euros, in the absence of England, it was easy to get behind the Spanish team, but then they went and blew it – blew the fact that they have been as useless, more useless, than England over the years. Winning something changed everything. But Spain will progress, despite a thought that has been nagging me that, like France in 2002, the team will just blow up. It might be remembered, though, that El Diego and Argentina lost their opening game in 1990, but still made the final.

Ah yes, 1990. In the days when World Cups still meant something. In that game, against Cameroon, you still had all what used to make World Cups great. Genuine, on-field violence. Why is this World Cup dull? Why have all World Cups since 1990 been dull? Because in 1994, FIFA decreed that the Americans had to have a tournament without physical contact, save for Leonardo’s elbow. What you got was Bebeto’s infuriating baby-rocking. Cutesy celebrations for an Americanised and sanitised era of football. Oh for the days of Argentina in 1978 and a Peruvian goalkeeper who just so happened to be Argentinian and who just so happened to let in six goals – against Argentina. Oh for the days of 1986 and a Uruguayan kicking my some time döppelganger Gordon Strachan up in the air after two minutes – and getting sent off.  Oh for the days of 1962 and David Coleman’s self-righteous indignation at the “disgrace” of Italy and Chile. The days of 1966 and Nobby Stiles attempting to put an end to detente by mugging France’s midfield, and the Argentinians – always the Argentinians – provoking Alf to his “animals”. One looked down the list of the first-round matches in the hope of some which years ago would have sparked a world war, but which have passed with nary an ankle tap. “After you, Luigi. No, after you, Roque.” Italy versus Paraguay. Thirty years ago or so, and it would have been mayhem. Not now. More’s the pity. That’s why World Cups are dull.

Among the locals of course, there is World Cup “fever”, as the press like to refer to it. This mainly manifests itself in terms of noise pollution via car horns, and then the sound of whole cars being written off as Switzerland spoil the party. But there are not so many Spanish flags attached to a Seat aerial or trailing behind a moto, spluttering and farting along the main roads. There are more German flags to be seen. And of course English. St George’s cross and Union flags. Then there are some strange flags. Like the ones that Cheers have put on the Cheers buggy and outside the bar. It’s red with a white cross. Not white with a red cross, but red with a white cross. The vertical line is straight down the middle. Where does this flag come from? The closest, with any World Cup connotation, seems to be the Danish flag, but its vertical line is offset to the left. Danes there are, but they are not around in the same numbers as the English. And Cheers is, after all, meant to be a British (English) bar. I reckon that someone ordered some St George’s flags and got the colours round the wrong way.

Unlike the local Spanish I can’t really get worked up about it all. World Cups are no longer what they were and what they should be – utterly unjust and a thigh-high tackle away from actual bodily harm. Mind you, this one might be like others – England will prove to be rubbish, and Germany will win it.

David Coleman. Fabulous. The Battle of Santiago, 1962:

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

After The Event – Linekers’ World Cup Song

Not quite after the event, because the event hasn’t taken place, but long after the event of the whole gig about getting an England World Cup song going because the Fab-ster had pooh-poohed the notion of Rooney doing a Barnesy-style rap (about three months after the event), comes … .  Sorry, Nobby, it’s crap. Linekers Bars’ World Cup song.

The blog is still fully behind Jess Conrad and “Soccer Superstar” and I feel bound to mention – again – George and the Dragons’ “Green Fields Of England”, which is only marginally better than – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiWEA5fUjUg

“Express yourselves.”  –  “We want goals.” We want Jess.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Kill The Dog – Why the British don’t watch Real Mallorca

What do you do on a Sunday afternoon? Any time between, say, three and six? In the UK, you may settle down on the sofa to watch the football, or you may be in a bar, watching the football. In Mallorca, you may settle down on the sofa to watch the football, or you may be in a bar, watching football. Wherever you are, what in all likelihood you are watching is the Premier League, unless you’re German, in which case you’ll be taking in the Bundesliga. If you’re more of a nerdy football fan, you may eschew your home leagues, the leagues from where you come, in favour of some other league – La Liga, for example. If you’re even more of a nerdy football fan, you may eschew those home leagues in favour of Real Mallorca; you might even go, if you happen to be in Mallorca.

I may be wrong, but before Paul Davidson came depth-plumbing and blowing his pipes full of what turned out to be fool’s gold I don’t recall “The Bulletin” devoting particular attention to the club or team. Prior to this, I didn’t pay much attention to Real either. It was the Davidson farce that made the club worthy of anything other than indifference, so the British angle can be said to have stimulated attention. The paper’s only regular column on current matters Mallorcan is about Real, and it is now – in association with the club – offering a package to the remaining home games. There is more than just a touch of desperation about this appeal to the British football fan to come and put his bum on one of the thousands of empty seats at the ONO. Look at the games coming up and you might wonder why there has to be such an appeal. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia have all yet to play in Palma this season. If these games can’t be sold out well in advance, you do have to ask whether Mallorca deserves a La Liga side. The stadium does, after all, have a capacity of no more than 25,000.

There are several reasons why the expat would not take up the offer. Take one – telly. What do you do on a Sunday afternoon? This coming Sunday afternoon, Liverpool will be playing Blackburn, Bayern Munich will be up against Hamburg in a top-four clash in the Bundesliga. Mallorca may be away, but even were the team to be at home – against Vallodolid – the result would be the same. Premier League, Bundesliga take precedence. It matters not that one’s own team may not be playing. The home leagues are as much a part of the expat football fan’s make-up as the team he actually supports, as are the cultures of those leagues – styles of play and even the language; the language of the terrace transported to the bar. Sing when you’re winning? You wouldn’t know what to sing at Real Mallorca, even if the fans did actually sing.

Going to a Mallorca game is at best an occasional thing, if at all. It falls into the category of being one of those things that should be done at some stage. A home match against Barça might well be that “stage”. One against Gijon or Getafe? Your expat football fan would be hard pushed to have ever heard of either of them, let alone be able to locate them on a map of the mainland or even pronounce them. There is arguably greater interest among tourists than residents where Mallorca games are concerned, but this interest is part of the holiday experience and stems from a not insignificant motivation on behalf of the football fan to be able to say that he has been to such and such a ground. I once stood among a couple of thousand grumpy-looking Swiss all chomping on Wurst und Kartoffelchips during a God-awful pre-season friendly between Grasshopper Zürich and some other team whose name escapes me. And all because I could say I’d been, and to the ground of a team with a mad name, to boot.

Adopting another team is one thing. Many football fans are prone to this. But to swap allegiance from the original team, from the original league is quite another. It would be like giving up a desire for curry and bacon and eggs in favour of Mallorcan sobrasada sausage and the ensaimada. It just doesn’t happen like this. Football, football teams, football leagues are too ingrained into the fan’s footballing psyche. Which makes me wonder as to those who go native in support of a local team, Real in this case. La Liga may well be one of the two or three “best” leagues in world football, but it’s not your expat football fan’s league; it’s someone else’s, something to perhaps be admired, but not to get fanatical about.

Yes of course, take in the odd Real Mallorca match. God knows they need all the support and money they can lay their hands on, but don’t let’s believe that your average expat footy fans are about to abandon the Premier League or Bundesliga bar in their droves, because they’re not. Perhaps the stronger message coming from Real Mallorca should be – if you don’t come this season, you might never come if the club goes the way of all Portsmouths, ejected from the Premier mother ship without even a parachute payment. This would be along the lines of “if you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog”. A threat in other words. Now then, threats. That’s the language your football fan understands.

QUIZ – Who threatened to kill the dog? Famous magazine cover. (I’m sure it was also an album cover by the same “group”, but maybe I imagined this.)

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Real Mallorca heading for administration

Poor old Real Mallorca. It just gets worse. The club’s interim president has taken the first step towards placing the club into administration. A period of three months will now follow a declaration of the club’s insolvency before a judge, a period during which the management will seek some accord with its various creditors. If this is unsuccessful, there will be a month’s prolongation, at the end of which administration would be the result. The timing of the declaration before the judge is not without significance. The four months would take the process up to the end of the football season. The club may yet avoid relegation on account of its parlous financial position, and relegation would be massively unjust for a team that has performed surprisingly well given the off-field crisis.
The club’s president has, meantime, been in discussion with the regional government’s president. One outcome of this is that the government may take over as club sponsors. “The Bulletin” referred to this the other day, though it said the “Mallorca government”. There is no such thing; it is either the Balearic regional government or the Council of Mallorca. Either way, if any government is going to start piling in with some cash for the club, then it could well be asked what the hell it’s playing at. Why should government intervene with a club that has been so mis-managed and which is so poorly supported? It is not a club for the majority of Mallorcans, or anything like it. Nor is it somehow emblematic, in a way that a Barcelona is. The government might perceive some involvement with a new “strategic plan” as a way of garnering electoral support from supporters, but their numbers are hardly great. And one, inevitably, comes back to the question as to why no serious buyer has emerged over the past couple of years. It’s because it’s not really worth anything, despite the remarkable efforts of the team and the coach Manzano who is almost certain to leave at the end of the season, come what may.
Make the most of it, any football fans in Mallorca. What is left of this season might be your last chance.

Oh No, It’s Soccer Superstar

You may know that there will not be an official World Cup song to mark England’s campaign this summer. No “Back Home”, no “World In Motion”. Apparently, Fabio doesn’t want the distraction. But there will of course be a song, several songs in all likelihood, and let me lend my support to Danny Baker’s call for something truly awful to be one of those songs, something truly awful that has a Mallorcan dimension in that the perpetrator is one of the island’s X-listed unter-celebs. Jess Conrad. Remember him? His name crops up now and then in the so-called celeb columns of the island’s media. He once recorded a song called “Soccer Superstar”, and it is this atrocity that Baker is promoting – and rightly so. If you are unfamiliar with this, then check it out – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_urjNkxaLz0. Who knows, there is probably already a Facebook campaign behind this inspiration for our boys in South Africa. Or maybe it could be remixed for a contemporary market. Give it over to Pete Hook to be newly ordered, and throw in Rooney doing a rap.

Stiff Little Fingers

Some more on Sant Antoni.

You can, if you are so minded, have a DIY Sant Antoni, in terms of the nosebag if nothing else. The local supermarkets, in prominent entry positions to maximise the “traffic” opportunity, deck out stalls with the food of the fiesta – the salami and the sausage – together with some vino on offer and some of the elements of fire-making, for barbecues as opposed to torching the neighbourhood, though the wood could indeed come in handy for that. What you won’t see, though, are Sant Antoni “guys”. Like Bonfire Night of old, before it became less acceptable to incinerate a “guy”, some of the Antoni bonfires are topped with demon “guys”, destined to be sent into the fiery pits of Hades from whence they came. But in keeping with a tradition of “satire”, as typified by the heads of well-known local figures worn by the “caparrots”, perhaps the fires of Sant Antoni should create pyres of those lagging in the popularity league, like various overseers of calamity club, Real Mallorca.

And talking of which. Here’s a curious thing. A number of consuls were gathered together a couple of days ago at Real’s stadium. In “The Bulletin”, there was a photo of them, alongside the odd club official, standing in the centre circle. In their ranks was the British Consul who swelled the numbers to sixteen. Sixteen! That constitutes a crowd at the ONO (oh no, it’s Real Mallorca) stadium. Having had their photo taken, they then all trooped off for a “roundtable discussion in the boardroom”. A discussion about what, for Heaven’s sake? “So, your British excellency, what’s your impression of Valero’s form this season?” What was this? Like a radio phone-in minus the radio and the phones? Perhaps the Consul was invited to wave a metaphorically admonishing finger and fire off a stiff missive to Sid Lowe and tell him to behave himself in future.

While on stiff missives, an outraged of nowhere actually stated had one printed in “The Bulletin” yesterday. It was about the “locals” and their lack of care and attention where the environment is concerned. Ah yes, the locals, not anyone else, only the locals, though it is fair to say that there is a tradition in Mallorca that rules apply to everyone else except oneself. Anyway, the author was bemoaning the facts that fishermen and families leave bottles and cans on beaches and that “rubbish bins are still full of household waste, plastic etc. as there is no enforced scheme of waste sorting”. Eh? Of course bins are full of household waste; that’s what they are there for. I think he meant to say that rubbish gets put into the wrong bins, which is undeniably the case, as I highlighted not so long ago with the photo of the palm branches in the household waste container. But what is being overlooked here is that these bins are communal. Anyone can come along and put rubbish into them, and do, not only those in the immediate neighbourhood for whom they are designed. How does one enforce or police such communal waste disposal? With great difficulty.

There was also a word about the light pollution caused by the street lights on the new by-pass in Puerto Pollensa. This is a fair point, as the lights are of older stock which which do indeed emit excessive levels of illumination. The question should be, though, who gave the green light to these lights in the first place. They should never have been permitted.

Montagu And Cholmondeley
Apropos of nothing, other than a Spanish connection and some absurdly splendid names, you may well get wind of the story, publicised by Ben McIntyre of “The Times” of a deception during the Second World War which involved the dead body of a Welsh labourer, made up to be a drowned British major, that was deliberately washed ashore in Spain as part of Operation Mincemeat to deceive the Germans into believing that an attack on Sicily was not going to take place. Fantastic Boys Own, Wizard stuff, replete with Montagu and Cholmondeley, two officers with resplendent moustaches, a coroner called Bentley Purchase and a corpse consultant named Bernard Spilsbury. They don’t make names like that nowadays, and maybe it was the Bernard and Cholmondeley twosome who gave Matt Lucas his Sir Bernard Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley) character. And British Consuls should still have such names, and give foreign johnnies and their football stadia a wide berth.

While I Was Gone

Despite the slight paean of yesterday to cheap and abundant latest technologies in England, there was a period of some five days when no technology intruded. Mobile off and no internet. Did my life suffer? Not so as you would notice. Nevertheless, by dint of some technological magic, I was able to remain abreast of matters Mallorcan. Not that there was much going on, other than grapes being eaten, fireworks going off and blokes thumping their wives. But I will not go there, in the case of the latter.

To catch up on some things that did occur …

Firstly, the corruption rumpus rumbled on. The leader of the Unió Mallorquina, Miquel Flaquer, had to resign owing to his implication in the Son Oms case. This added fuel to the schism within the party. The matriarch of the party, for whom I have coined the description “Mother Munar”, was dubbed the “reina madre” (queen mother) by a press examining the tensions between supporters of so-called “munarismo” and those who would rather put considerable clear blue water between themselves and the party’s grandest grandee, herself of course on the corruption charge-sheet. Leading-ish members of the party not either banged up or in danger of being so were jockeying for the top job in the party, including – God forbid – Mr. Awkward, Joan Cerdà, mayor of Pollensa. By awkward, I don’t mean that he is one of the awkward squad, just that he looks so awkward. Perhaps this is because he’s always in the firing-line following the latest gaffe by Pollensa town hall. Mercifully, he was not elected leader, even if his elevation would have given rise to huge sport and amusement. Instead, the UM spokesperson in the parliament, Josep Melià, has got the gig, which I’m sure will make you all feel as though you can rest easy in your beds.

Secondly, Real Mallorca and its lack of fans. Sid Lowe may have caused his own little rumpus by suggesting the club has no fans, but he was of course right. It doesn’t, or rather it doesn’t have many. Despite the on-field success of the team, the club’s support is falling. The average attendance this season is a mere 12,323 spectators, half the stadium’s capacity. The club’s management is baffled by all this. It shouldn’t be. Mallorcans support other (mainland) teams, the ground has no atmosphere, and the team is regularly ripped apart, only to be put back together with bits of string and sticky-backed plastic by the heroic coach Manzano. To these factors, one can add the economic crisis and alternatives in terms of football on the telly and other attractions. The announcement of such poor attendance does, though, undermine all those protestations, partly by expat supporters gone native and by those who took exception to what Lowe had to say, as to the importance of the club. It is a club that may yet die through lack of interest.

Thirdly, the new smoking law. The president of the island’s small and medium-sized businesses organisation gave a wide-ranging interview to “The Diario” in which, although not clarifying exactly when the new law is meant to kick in, he accepted the need for no-smoking areas but criticised the Spanish Government (and the regional one) for a lack of appreciation as to the costs involved in conforming with the law, bars and restaurants having been obliged to spend in order to meet rules introduced four years ago, which are now to be superseded. The president, Juan Cabrera, did not go so far as to demand financial assistance but did call for “responsibility” on behalf of governments determined to press ahead with health legislation without thought being applied to wider business impact. Unlike other commentators, he does not believe that the smoking ban will result in closures; other factors will cause these. He also had something to say about the fact that over holiday periods, such as that at the end of the first week of December, so few places were open. He reserved criticism for the great number of restaurants that did close, saying that – at a holiday time – people don’t want towns that are “totally dark”, which is fair comment but neglects the fact that employees are on double time on fiesta days, something that many owners are unprepared to pay.

And finally, but still on restaurants, the first female chef from Mallorca is to participate in the Madrid Fusion culinary exhibition at the end of January, this chef being Macarena de Castro from Jardín restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia. Those who have ever been to Jardín are more likely to know Danny, but it is his sister who is the cooking talent behind the restaurant, and at the Madrid event she will be preparing dishes based on sobrasada, the local sausage.

Swing Lowe – Vicious Sid And Real Mallorca

Sid Lowe. Not a stranger to a bit of controversy and not a stranger to this blog, as any of you will know who recall the ding-dong he caused when he drew attention to an advert in which the Spanish basketball team made “slitty-eyed” gestures at the time of the Beijing Olympics (18 August, 2008: Basket Case – at http://www.alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com). Now it’s the turn of Real Mallorca. The club has apparently sent him a letter expressing its indignation (so it is said in “The Bulletin”) following something he wrote on his “Guardian” blog, which would probably not have caused much of a fuss had it not been picked up by the Spanish media.

Lowe, for those of you who don’t know, is a journo based in Madrid and has made a career out of taking the rise out of Spanish football and sport. He is also a football commentator on Spanish TV, but he is of course British, and it is this – being British – that one suspects people don’t like, some Real Mallorca supporters and officials, that is. There has also been a touch of lost in translation as well as selective reading of Lowe’s piece in which he called Real Mallorca “rubbish” and sub-headed the piece by saying that “Real Mallorca are badly run, financially constricted and have a shoddy team”. None of this is inaccurate, though he goes on to qualify this by looking at the recent farcical ownership fandango and by heaping praise on coach Gregorio Manzano for getting a team of average players to perform as well as it is – to fifth position in La Liga. In response to one of only, from what I can see, two comments taking him to task, he also qualifies the use of the word “rubbish”, one that is typically used in throwaway terms by English speakers. He also said that the club has “no fans”, which he then explains in the comments exchange; the club has a poor attendance record, which is undeniable.

It does all seem to boil down to who you are and where you write. Go back to the title of that previous blog entry about Lowe. “Basket Case” is a term I have used on more than one occasion to also describe Real Mallorca. Lowe’s article is not a million miles away from stuff I have said about Real Mallorca, especially in respect of the ownership nonsense, the lack of money, the level of debt and the fans – I still find it hard to understand how the only La Liga club in Mallorca cannot regularly fill its stadium, one with a capacity of some 25,000. Actually I do understand, because many Mallorcans follow Barça or even one of the Madrid teams.

The mention in “The Bulletin” described Lowe’s piece as “inflamatory” (sic – there is an “m” missing). It was nothing of the sort, and many Mallorca fans would probably agree with much of what he wrote. Indeed many have said much the same thing, especially with regard to the damage to the club’s reputation caused by the likes of Grande, Davidson and the Martí family.

Read Sid Lowe’s article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/dec/07/mallorca-managerial-magic-sid-lowe

It’s Leaving Home – World Cup In Mallorca

The World Cup draw has been made. We now know that from 12 June until 11 July, no one will be going on holiday, for that is the period during which England will play their first game and ultimately the final. If only.

I have never quite bought this argument that people don’t go on holiday because of the World Cup; it’s always seemed like a convenient excuse for those inclined to talk of bad times to be able to say that times are bad – all because of some football. True, there are some who prefer the comfort of their living-room sofa and the contents of their fridge and drinks cabinet to mucking in with fellow fans in a bar, but there are an awful lot who prefer the bar for football watching, wherever it is – back home or on holiday. With the hotels being even keener to keep the football watchers in the bars within their own several walls next summer, there will be nowhere in Mallorca where the football will not be available – and it will all be at convenient times; England’s qualifiers will take place at 8.30 in the evening or four in the afternoon, Spanish time.

The bar is the football terrace writ small, and with no restrictions on alcohol. It is the place of group tribalism, where the irrational hatred of mostly all teams England encounter is given high volume and much voice by wearers of the latest replica kit and bearers of high-sized shorts: Germany, the war, losing penalty shoot-outs and differences of opinion of a sun-lounger nature; Argentina – Rattin, Galtieri, Maradona and Simeone; France – because of Henry and because they’re French; Australia – because they normally beat England at any other sport; Portugal because they always beat England and Ronaldo is a cheating bastard; Ivory Coast because Drogba’s a cheating bastard; Italy because they’re all cheating bastards; even Spain now, because they are no longer the great cockers-up as England still are. In the first round, the USA will be despised because they’ve all got too much money and caused the banking crisis, the Algerians will be damned because they’re Muslims, the Slovenians will be the object of derision because Slovenia is a small country that no one had heard of until a few years ago and everyone confuses with Slovakia, another small country no one had heard of until a few years ago. There’s always some reason.

Then there’s the opportunity for a bit of light-hearted violence. On holiday during the World Cup makes this all the more convenient with competing nations represented in-resort – Germans, Danes, Dutch, Italians, French, Swiss; doesn’t really matter which, they’re all foreign, after all. And there’s the chance to parade in the streets and instruct the locals as to some choice but limited English vocabulary: F, C, W, take your pick, or even put them in combination. The chance, too, to drape flags of St. George from hotel balconies, flags identifying some small part of England, announced to passers-by – Runcorn, Peterborough, Dagenham.

And as for the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish (north and Republic), there is no excuse to stay at home, as there’s nothing to watch anyway, except England hopefully being stuffed. So, they’ll be heading for Mallorca, along with the England supporters about whom there will be alarm among the local authorities which will try and impose new restrictions on bars, which will issue warnings as to fans sleeping on beaches and causing general chaos. And they will, as usual, get it wrong because actually there never is that much chaos, if any. Despite all the foregoing, there never is much by the way of trouble, just football fans out for a good time, a few of the boys’ bevvies, watching the footy in the sun. World Cup on holiday. They’ll be flocking in – whatever some might say to the contrary. Oh, and if on 11 July, by some miracle … .