A World Cup in Canada

The World Cup is over, people celebrated (mainly in Italy), people cried (every other nation in the competition) and English fans can look forward to a prosperous Euro 2008 campaign under Steve McLaren (no they can't can they).

But how was it to watch outside of England. Without the constant hype, English flags hanging out of every window and every car, semi racist headlines on the front cover of The Sun and violence breaking out around the country. How would Canada embrace the World Cup?

For a start they showed evry game live which was a big plus for starters. It was the first time in Canadian history that this has happened with games being broadcast between 6am and 12pm throughout the month. They also had English commentators taken from Fifa's International broadcast. One of these was Gary Bloom, who you may remember from Channel 4's football italia coverage.

The actual studio pundits were a mixed bag ranging from useless to completely useless. It was usually a competition of who could state the obvious between Dick Howard (may have once lived in England from his accent), Craig Forrest (may have kept goal for Ipswich and West Ham), Vic Rauter (may have seen a game of football once in his life before the World Cup) and some other guy (may have been called Gerry).

Vic Rauter - This man knows nothing about football


The main annoyance from the coverage though was the adverts, all 3 of them. Repeated through every break it nearly drove us insane. Especially the Rogers one.

Whilst there wasn't the hype and media coverage that there would have been in England, we were part of a more multi cultural world cup experience. People of all nations proudly displayed their shirts and flags and even the Canadians followed the action. From Koreans dancing in the streets at 8 in the morning to police shutting down Commercial Drive as Italian fans swarmed out of the cafes and bars.

At last, the new pizza hut had opened


Even in my household various nations were represented. Shuji's opinion on Japan were that "they sucked" and I had to talk Laura out of commiting suicide after the USA went out.

Gav's front room where we watched the World Cup Final. The only Scottish mention in connection with the World Cup you will ever see


Overall it was a good experience to truly share a world cup experience with the rest of the world. Here are my world cup memories.

Best Moment - Hard to think of any great moments from England. So I'll go with my second team Italy winning.

Worst Moment - Sitting in the cinema where we had just watched England lose on penalties to Portugal. It was made worse as the Portugal fans danced and celebrated as they left.