Last night Hubbie and I went to a football game (and by football I mean the real kind, not the rugby-for-pussies kind). The game was a "friendly" between Preston, a small British football club, and a Mexican team from Monterrey.
I dragged hubbie there to cheer the Brits on, something which I never would have dreamed of doing while living in the UK. Growing up in England, I avoided football matches - televised and live - like the plague. My main exposure to the sport was from my Grandad - my Mum's Dad - who loved the sport and would tune into "Match of the Day" which is akin to Monday Night Football in the U.S., except it's on a Sunday. My Grandad loved football and my uncle, my Mum's brother Frankie, was football mad. Frankie's kids, my cousins Darren and Paul, all played professionally, Darren even playing for the England Youth Team. My Uncle, Frankie, was a scout for Tottenham for a while during it's heyday with Terry Venabales (a previous England coach and a friend of my Uncle's), Gary Linnekar and Gazza. My Mum, as a girl, even has great stories about sitting on Terry Venabales knee.
Of course, to those of you who know nothing at all about "soccer" I'm sounding very knowledgeable right now. Really my shameless name-dropping is pathetic at best to the average Brit. Even if you don't watch football in England, it's hard for the national sport not to drift into your consciousness - kind of like, as an American, it's hard not to know that Barry Bonds is going for the home-run record right now. Basically, you would need to turn off all forms of media and put your head in the sand.
Where I'm going with this (and I am going somewhere) is that the likelihood of me dragging my husband to a football game had I of continued living in the UK, was slim to none. But it's amazing what you grasp desperately onto from your home country once you leave.
So, there I was, sitting in a converted minor-league baseball field in Sacramento, a stadium packed with Mexican immigrants, watching a little-known team from northern England play a Mexican football team. What's more, I was even enjoying it.
We had great seats, close to mid-field and only eight rows back from the pitch, and the sight of a big, round football soaring high and long down the pitch, almost brought tears to my eyes. As the teams moved up and down the pitch, tackling, fowling, even fighting, I realized how much I had missed this game that had lived on the peripheral of my consciousness throughout my entire childhood. The atmosphere was electric, people straining to watch the game as it moved closer to either end of the pitch, then rising to their feet to cheer or express disappointment when someone went for the goal. How could anyone love the snail's pace of baseball, or the constant stoppages and littany of rules of American Football better than this?
What's more, I couldn't help thinking: My Grandad would be so proud. And at the same time Why didn't I give this game a chance before? All those years I complained and rolled my eyes as the music to "Match of the Day" filled our living room, and I should have been sitting side-by-side with my Grandad, sharing in his passion. Throughout the game images popped in and out of my head, images of Grandad sitting in his armchair, legs crossed, with one of his knitted cardigans on, grumbling at the tv set as his team, West Ham, inevitably lost. He's been gone for sixteen years, half my life, but yesterday I really missed him.
We left 10 minutes before the end of the game. Preston was down 0-1 and even through my rose-tinted glasses I could tell they weren't playing all that well. I hear Monterrey won 2-0 in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment