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I don't know what's become of me. When I left the UK I despised the sleezy, corrupt game that is football. This "game" filled with greasy-haired, cheating-on-their-wives, majory over-paid wusses who somehow managed to become heroes to football fans all over the UK has always disgusted me. If you've never watched the Mitchell and Webb sketch "football" then watch it now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1WN0YMWZU . This is basically how I felt about football living in England. This has now changed.
A couple of weekends ago, Alix and I were meant to be going on holiday because we had a long weekend, but the government changed the Monday bank holiday to a Tuesday so we couldn't go away. We were really annoyed at the time especially when we found out that it had been changed because there was a football match on the Tuesday. Typical Honduras. Anyway, we decided to make the most of the day and went along to the football with some of the other teachers from the school. Honduras was playing Canada. I was looking forward to experiencing a different part of Honduran culture, but I wasn't exactly hopeful that I'd enjoy it.
The players came on the pitch to warm up for a bit before the game which I didn't know they did. The Honduran team got a massive cheer. There were vuvuzelas, whistles, chanting and cheering. No one held back! The Canadian team got booed. I felt pretty sorry for them. Coming to play in a country like Honduras where people are so obsessed with football, and coming with no supporters to stand up for them, they pretty much got heckled throughout the game. The entire stadium was blue and white - I couldn't see one spot of red. When they sang the Canadian national anthem, I couldn't hear it over the crowd, but as soon as the Honduran anthem came on, everyone stood up and with one huge voice sang the always longer than you think, Honduran national anthem. It must have been pretty intimidating actually.
Once the game got started I got really into it! I developed this crazy pride to be supporting Honduras. They played really well. You could see that they were really talented players. For some reason I had thought before the match that Honduras would loose. I think it has something to do with it being a match between a developing country and a very developed country, which I know carries no logic, but it's just what I thought. Anyway, by half time, I knew I was wrong. Honduras were 4-0 up and Canada looked like they'd given up.
At half time the crowd was invaded by food sellers, selling baleadas, tajadas, candyfloss, snowcones, hotdogs, nuts, soda, and lots of beer. The stands were just these concrete stairs, like in some Roman amphitheatre. There were no actual seats, so the sellers just wandered along the seats, stepping over sleeping children and around overly-large football fans, balancing buckets of food and drink in their hands. I have no idea how they did it. We didn't go hungry that day.
As soon as the game restarted, people got really into it again - including me. Whenever Honduras scored a goal (and it happened a lot) everyone would jump out of their seats start screaming, cheering, vuvuzelaing and everything. Beer, water, pepsi and various foods would be thrown into the air and would rain down on those unfortunate people sat near the front. I got home that evening stinking of beer and smoke with refried beans in my hair and some sort of tomato sauce down my white football shirt. I also found what I think was a bit of a nacho chip in my shoe.
Honduras won 8-1! When the final whistle went, everyone in the crowd went crazy!! The noice was deafening! We left, grabbing a last hotdog on the way and got back into the minibus to go home where we spent the entire journey triamphanty singing along to the Queen and Rhianna songs that came on the radio or answering questions about British football teams. We went for a beer with the other teachers for a while before going home and the atmosphere was extatic! People get so hyped about football! The weird thing was though that I got really hyped up about it too!
- comments
mum Anna I love your blog, it's so funny! but heaven help us if you turn into a football nut like your dad!