Semi Final 2, Munich. (World Cup 2006)

It cast a grey fug over me for most of the following day, the female failure of the night before.  With little else to think about and nobody else to speak to, I pondered it torturously as I walked around a huge, empty sunbaked park.  I was an over-hasty idiot who felt his delicate pride had been slighted.  My only chance, and a half decent one, and I backed down, walked away.

Wouldn’t do that again.

Towards the centre of town, a series of elegant spires and jagged edges, I found a beautifully sociable beer garden with a warm, buzzy atmosphere.  Green leafy trees overhung multiple, standard pub benches, while two swiftly managed hatches sold a neverending supply of beer in an extraordinary range of glasses and long, thick, mustard-laden wurst.  You picked your size of mug from one hatch and paid at the next.  It was predictably efficient.



On the bench next to mine a lone girl stopped, sat down and began chatting to two young male American tourists.  They all seemed to get on splendidly, oblivious to the bitter envy-rays my eyes spat at them from across the path.  I sat alone on my table except for the apparently obligatory old man I might someday be.  It’s always such fairly nondescript middle-aged or old men who sit on my table; it was the day before when I’d stopped here.  It’s always them who end up sitting next to me on planes too.  Never the cute girl from the departure lounge who was sitting alone, flicking through Cosmopolitan.  That girl sits down the plane and across the aisle, next to someone who could well be me and mightn’t even look dissimilar, but isn’t me.  It’s the version of me with the luck who trails the real me about the place rubbing my nose into the floor.

In the Munich Fan Fest for the Portugal-France Semi Final I saw the boys from the previous evening and quickly passed with a nod and chipper “all right, boys?”  Partly because I was still smarting, partly because I was embarrassed of myself for leaving like that, and partly because I didn’t want to know if she and James actually did...

I strolled around the old Olympic fan park, the highest hill affording an impressive panorama across the city, the distinctively sharp-edged Munich Olympic stadium at its centre, where England had famously beaten Germany 5-1 in a 2001 World Cup qualifier.



Back inside the surprisingly modest Munich fan park itself – some scale shy of Berlin’s, I said no more than a word or two to those around me while supporting Les Bleus to their almost entirely forgettable 1-0 win over Portugal, (despite wearing a cloyingly talk-to-me intentioned England top, and France and Germany coloured flowery wrist chains).

At the full-time whistle I said something, perhaps felicitations, to a French supporting young girl in front of me, who turned out to be German.  I teased her about the flexibility of her allegiance; she looked for a name and number on the back of my England shirt.  There was none so we deduced that I was nobody.  We chatted for a short time near her timid looking friends, a couple.  (Is it more ok for Germans to hang out with friends who are couples?  Is there less awareness or awkwardness about encroaching?  Or are they less uptight about that kind of thing?)  She thought me amusingly odd to be alone.  I considered lying and making up some lost friends; didn’t bother.  With the sun fully dipped, the weather turned eerily gusty, dust and dirt whipped up uncomfortably from the bank where we were standing, blowing grit into faces and eyes.  I offered myself as a shield and she held me close to avoid getting dirt into her eyes.  We continued chatting.  She held tighter as the wind whipped stronger.  Stewards soon began to shepherd people out and away.  Her friends’ plans of what they were doing weren’t clear.  Nobody seemed to know or be terribly fussed about where I went and my new friend made no appeal for me to stay with them, she seemed genuinely ambivalent.



I walked away, hating myself anew.  Couldn’t you just grow some bollocks?

My feet took me back to the town and into a local feeling karaoke bar, on which sat a brochure of awful songs, matched by some equally bad singers.  Wearing an England top, my nationality was obvious as I sat at the square bar in the middle of the room, pawing through the brochure, half glancing up at the confident young barmaid who showed the odd uncaring indication of drunkenness.  She even contributed the occasional track from her bar.  One young local chap talked to me about the football, and was physical in his gesturing.  I nervously wondered about his orientation but he did nothing to clarify and eventually left me alone.

A girl then chatted to me, drunk but confident.  She said something suggestive.  Overweight and pierced, she looked and behaved like she’d experienced her fair share of wurst.  I didn’t warm to her, although I likely would have if she’d been an attractive tart.  I cursed my inability to compromise and numb myself, instead emitting accordingly uninterested signals.

She discomforted me into moving bar.  Another club; non-karaoke, surprisingly busy.  I glanced enviously at two young men wearing England tops, with two presumably local, attractive girls.  They both seemed fairly advanced with their partners and my envy surged again.  Could’ve been me last night.  More Other-version-Me’s with luck.  Nobody spoke to me there, but there was more to admire so I stayed awhile, bored, sad, perving.  My huge hostel and shared room wasn’t enticing.

This was supposed to be the day / night / week of my year / life.  And it had mostly been shit.

I was due to return to Berlin on the Deutsche Bahn and fly home from there in another 48 hours.  48 hours was AGES, especially with a 10 hour train ride and more accommodation to sort out.  Baddiel & Skinner came on once more and I moved for the door.  Morning was cracking the sky as I walked away.  I decided to head for Munich airport after a few hours’ sleep.  I was coming home.