Our top tip for the perfect match-viewing experience is:
Stop in.
You might as well, for all the enjoyment you'll get out of going to the bar to watch it.
Go on, lock yourself in the spare room with the portable, a few dozen cans and a pail to piss in.
Avoid the pub at all costs. It'll be a disaster from start to finish. It doesn't matter what your gleefully optimistic arrangements are, you'll end up in the same fucking predicament as you do with every major tournament: either stuck in the queue for some shitey fun-bar, furiously poiking out the texts to your mates who've been in since opening time, or inside missing half the match thumb-bickering with the unfortunate queue-bound sods outside.
You can forget about the banter and the tactical insight. Your ears will be bleeding long before kick-off, thanks to the inane hollering of the fuckhead DJ, whipping up an atmosphere by pumping out Ibiza classics at illegal volumes. Think of the pushing and shoving, the infuriating service and the bar's insulting insinuation that this World Cup - and every match ever - was their idea.
But the big screen!, we're hearing. What about the big screen?! Is that the screen that's so big it reaches down to the floor, so all anyone outside of the first three rows will see is the score along the top and the backs of every fucker else's head? Or is it the flapping, blurred, bleached-out sailcloth that's all but invisible unless you're rigidly perpendicular?
Everyone in the pub is an utter fool. When we lose, it'll be their fault.
Let there be a law passed in time for the next finals, that forbids entry to the pissed-up meathead or the unctuous little cunt in the jester's hat. Enforce a minimum pint price, one that makes it less of a good idea to hoy it up, up and away at the first sight of a free kick on the edge of the D. And singing at the telly? Why?
Saints preserve us from the clueless, once-a-year England fanette, all tight replica shirt and billowing fat arse, trumpeting her pig-ignorance of the beautiful game to whichever poor twat she's latched onto. Yeah, we know what you're thinking: you're thinking we're going to trot out some lazy, offensive cliches about women's understanding of the offside law. Balls, are we. But we are going to express despair that they've yet to grasp the 85-minute rule, which clearly states that, just because a deathly dull match is 0-0 in the dying stages, any man in her company is NOT automatically content just to have "seen most of it", nor is he therefore likely to want to talk about work or soft bloody furnishings until the bastard in the yellow blows for full-time.
Forget what the telly has told you. Watching the match in the pub will NOT be like the adverts, not even the ones for some other fucking sport they call "furtee" . There will be no dancing in the streets afterwards, no multiracial harmony and no beaming faces. There will be no stirring mix of heartfelt passion and respect for a game well played, whatever the outcome. And there will be no blonde honeys in girly-fit England tops begging to swallow your muck just because you can name all of the '66 Final XI.
Instead there will be crushing disappointment at another premature exit. There will be a forlorn stream of spilt Foster's and broken glass. And there will be ugly scenes as we blow our collective gasket, releasing our pent-up fury on whatever comes to hand. The burger van will be in flames, roadsigns will be launched through the windscreen of the nearest foreign vehicle, and the Bigg Market will be Kristallnacht II: This Time We Trash The Greeks.
Come on, they'll say. It's our national day. We need something to make up for the embarrassment that is our St George's celebrations. In Ireland they have St Paddy's, in Brazil there's the Carnival, and even the bloody Latvians have a day of proclamation. This is what we do, this proud nation with so much cultural and historical impact on the four corners of the globe: each time we get - controversially, always controversially - knocked out of a major tournament, we run fucking riot. After all, who won the bloody war anyway?
Look, we're never going to win the damn trophy, no matter what cobblers they trot out about team spirit and x-ty years of hurt. We're not even going to make the semis. That much was clear even before the curse of the metatarsal raised its Rooney-ugly head, and you don't need us to spell out exactly why. Cometh the hour, cometh the farce. Take it from us, we'll fuck it up like we always do.
DON'T go to the pub to watch any of it. Stay at home and save yourself the heartache.
Think of the whole World Cup extravaganza as being like Christmas, just with (marginally) better weather. You've already had weeks of inescapable build-up, with every spiv and shyster trying to sell you shit you don't need on the back of some vague ideas of celebration. You've been bombarded with their lies about how you can't live without their cash-in clothing and their mile-wide twenty-grand tellies. The last thing you need is all that crap in the pub as well.
Refuse to line their pockets. Tell them to shove it. Let them know what you know, that their fucking number is up.
You'll thank us for it later.
Prediction:
