Intermission

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this bulletin on the state of British Football.

It's not good.

Now, no one has ever mistaken me for a sports fan, but I do enjoy watching a game now and again. More so since moving to England, primarily due to the fact that British sports tend to be more lively than their American counterparts (we're discounting Cricket here--God's own remedy for insomnia). Accordingly, I have grown fond of trips to the local arena with my brother-in-law where we buy a coffee, eat a pork pie and settle in to watch Brighton and Hove Albion run around the pitch for 90 minutes in the rain and cold.

Over the years, it has become a comfortable tradition. But this time it was different: this time it was warm, this time the sun actually appeared, this time there were no pies.

At first, I was in denial. There were four burger coaches on hand; one of them had to sell pies. But it was not to be. I had waited all week for a pie only to be forced into eating a tepid hamburger with a slice of cold cheese on a stale bun. Another piece of England swept away.

I blame the Americans. And, as if to prove me right, the cheerleaders were back. I've made mention of this inappropriate American import in other posts, but up until now they have at least been harmless. Mostly they just behaved like a gaggle of girls who were enticed away from a hectic afternoon of hanging around the High Street, dressed up in blue and white outfits and told to wander aimlessly around the perimeter of the field. They were like ants at a picnic—mildly annoying, not supposed to be there, but generally harmless.

On this day, however, they attempted a cheer involving large blue and white checkered flags and moving in time to some music. They shouldn't have set their sights so high; any cheerleader who is merely doing something I could do (and quite possibly better) is not worthy of the name.

If I wanted to eat warmed over burgers and watch uninspiring cheerleaders before a game, I'd go back to The States and attend any high school hockey match. What happened to the England I had fallen in love with; is it striving to become a watered down version of America, or has it become accidentally naff?

Gettin' jiggy wi' the flags.

The thought was so depressing I found myself wishing it would rain, just so it would feel like England again.

But it didn't; instead, the sun came out.

Eventually, the game began, the girls went away and I could concentrate on enjoying the action on the pitch. Although I can't claim to fully understand the rules of soccer, I at least know enough to cheer when they score a goal. I am also savvy enough to understand the need for a heartfelt groan when someone on our team inadvertently passes the ball to an opposing player. And that's a good thing because, quite frankly, they did this a lot.

They gave the ball away so often I wondered if the coach, during the halftime pep talk, was going to remind them that the opposing players were the ones in the green jerseys. If he did, they didn't listen. Still, we managed a draw, though the only way either team managed to score a goal was by being allowed to kick it into the opponent's net from about five feet away. That tells you everything you need to know about what sort of game it was.

I was never sure why they allowed them to do this; it was either to avoid having the players go home feeling sad because they didn't get a goal, or the result of (forgive the technical jargon) a really bad penalty.

Speaking of penalties, I had my first experience of seeing one up close, and it saved the day for me. It started when an opposing player dribbled the ball along the pitch in front of us and one of our guys made an enthusiastic, though somewhat unconventional, tackle.

(Aside: 'dribbling' refers to running with the ball while kicking it ahead of you and/or to other players, preferably on your own team. I realize the Brits all know this, and very likely most of the Americans know it, as well, but I didn't know it. When I first heard the term, it was in reference to a WWI story wherein a Captain or Sergeant or someone in command of a group of boys destined to have their names chiseled on a monument in their respective village squares, encouraged them to charge into no-man's land while dribbling a football. This conjured up rather strange and macabrely humorous images in my mind, though when I found out what they were actually doing I don't suppose I found it any less bizarre.)

But back to the game. I knew our man had committed a foul, and I knew he would get a yellow card for it. And sure enough, over comes the ref who gives our man a quiet bollocking, holds aloft a yellow card and then, get this, puts it back in his own pocket.

Even through the sound of thousands of fans booing the ref for making such an unfair and outrageous call, I still heard the penny drop. Who could know that the phrase, "he was given a yellow card" was not to be taken literally.  In that instant, gone were my impressions of referees roaming the pitch carrying full decks of yellow cards to hand out to players like points on their drivers licenses. No more would I imagine players saving up the cards to redeem them for a red one after they had acquired enough. It was, in a word, jarring.

So, confused, out of my depth and finding all of my previous assumptions dissipating, I felt, at last, as if I were truly in England.