I wish someone had told me this

I can’t really complain, I didn’t share let him in on the secret either.

Like many fathers before me, I really wasn’t all that aware of what I was doing as I pulled the first football shirt over my young son’s head.  I was more concerned with how this genetically personalized mascot would look, than the long term emotional effects of pulling an England shirt over his head.

Of course, his mother disapproved; but I carried on regardless.  It was just the way things had to be.  It was my duty. 

Or so I thought.

I had several opportunities early on to stop the sickness spreading.  Again, though, I failed to spot the tell-tale signs: delusions of grandeur, difficulty in distinguishing between fantasy and reality, and often compulsive behaviour.  It is too often the case that only in hindsight do we realize the universal significance of our most mundane acts.

Sitting next to my teenage son, still in his shirt and glued to the television in youthful hope and expectation, I feel guilty – guilty for not letting him in on the secret; guilty for not stepping in and shielding him from the tide of emotion that I know will sweep over him within the next ninety minutes; guilty for allowing him to believe that 44 years of ‘hurt’ and disappointment can be traded in for a once-in-a-lifetime, golden ticket to World Cup final victory.

I feel guilty, but I know it is far too late now to change his destiny.  He has gone through the rites of passage and is now marked out as an England fan; and will likely spend the rest of his life dividing time into periods of four years – always hoping that at least once in his life, if he keeps the faith, he will witness a match that will atone for everything that has gone before.

But that’s the thing.  Even if, by some remote chance, the gods decide that it is our turn to reach the promised land; if ever those decisions go in our favour; if ever our players come good at the right time, there’s no guarantee that our lives will feel more meaningful, complete, or fulfilled.

Looking across at my son at the other end of the sofa – watching his disbelief as these boyhood heroes let him down again – I realize that I have continued a great British tradition and kept the secret, just as my own father kept it from me until I was old enough to work it out on my own.

You see the story that is being played out between twenty two men over ninety minutes is never as simple as it seems.  

No, something’s afoot: a bigger story is literally being played out before our eyes; the tale of a group of people who once thought that they ruled the world, but didn’t; a story of a nation struggling to perform on the world stage in any meaningful way.

And until we come to terms with this, we’re going to keep on getting bad results.

For now at least, it appears that the secret’s safe and we’ll be back to prove the point in another four years.

Comments

[liz]

I know the feeling, but at least with multi-national kids I have the opt out clause, and they are currently supporting Holland (Hup Hup).