World Cup I

First half - Group stage
Eating the football, hope, disappointment and a bite

Let me just say from the start or should I say kickoff I'm not a football fanatic. I do not have a team to which I owe allegiance or even one that I can muster anything more than passing interest. The local team, the team of my current town of residence is Preston North End Football Club so called presumably because it is a football club with their ground at the north end of a town called Preston. PNE, as it is known, was a founding member of the Football League and in the inaugural season were unbeaten and thus become the first league champions. In the same season they won the FA Cup without conceding a goal and became the first club to achieve the English football "Double". An auspicious start, unfortunately with the exception of a few positive blips (if you can have positive blips), one of which was their 1938 FA Cup victory over Huddersfield Town, it has been somewhat down hill for the club since then.

The team of my youth was Barnsley F.C., a team struggling in the lower half of the then 4th Division. There were division one teams within striking distance, the two Sheffield teams and the then mighty Leeds United to name just three, but the truth was, they were out of my league financially. This didn't stop me penning LUFC on my school satchel and books in that funny thick sausage writing so loved by modern day graffiti artists. LUFC supporters were hard, Barnsley supporters less so.

Given my limited financial situation, and the fact that my mum wouldn't let me shave my head and wear Doc Marten's, Barnsley was the team that I went to watch the most. Every other Saturday afternoon in the season me and my mate 'Rolo' would wait on the main road, opposite the Bulls Head for the supporters bus. A coach supplied by Borrow's Buses of Wombwell and organised by an old guy who to misquote Brian Hanrahan's dispatch from the Falklands 'counted us (young'ens) off the bus and counted us back on again'. For half a crown, 2/6 in old money or 12½p in modern era coinage we could get the coach to Oakwell, get admission to the ground, buy a Bovril at halftime, get the coach back, then call into the village chippy for six pennyworth of chips and some free fish 'bits'.

Those chips were the best in the world...

World Cup II

Second half - Knockout stage
Eating more football, a failed prediction and OCD

Half the teams have gone home, including some of the big names in European football, Spain, Portugal, Italy and of course England (well perhaps not that big a name at the moment). Germany, Holland and France are still in there along with a few big name South American teams.

Who will raise the FIFA World Cup...