G8 Online

A massive day indeed, with Argentina v Nigeria as the centrepiece - our first real taste of World Cup action. On getting up, we sprayed our hair green and white in support of Nigeria before heading out.

The bus journey to the stadium provided George with the opportunity to continue telling us how America is really a great country ("God Bless America!", as he kept saying in a mock-US accent, only half-ironically). Our Japan Rail Passes, which we had believed would get us on every form of transport in the country, turned out not to be valid for these buses (and indeed, for a large number of things), much to our irritation. However, within a couple of hours we had made it to our destination : Ibaraki, and within site of the stadium.

The fans were all cheerfully mingling - mostly Japanese supporters in Argentina shirts, but with a smattering of "genuine" fans providing some value. As we headed away from the stadium in order to join the end of the lengthy queue, I took this photo - as you can see, it's a pretty impressive-looking venue.

It was in almost exactly the place this photo was taken from, that Yuhei suddenly shouted, "Alan Smith!" And sure enough, there he was - not the violent lipstick-wearing Leeds striker, or the crap balding ex-Crystal Palace manager, but the ex-Arsenal man, TV punditry's Mr Bland himself. Alan waved at us as he continued on his merry way towards the media centre, while we all congratulated Yuhei on a remarkably good spot.

Once we had made our way to the front of the queue, we were intercepted by a South American TV station who, presumably inspired by Sultoon's decision to wear his Peru shirt, decided to interview him (picture 1) (picture 2). The interview probably didn't go quite as the questioner had expected : "Where are you from? England. What is that shirt? Peru, because Argentina besmirched Peru in the 1978 World Cup, so I'm supporting Nigeria because of that. Why is your hair green? Because I'm supporting Nigeria. What will the score be today? 5-4 to Argentina. Not Nigeria? I hope Nigeria will win, but I think Argentina." Followed by about 100 repeated questions on what Sultoon thought about England v Argentina, what about the handball incident, and so on, before eventually giving up. That's only a rough transcript, but if that or anything like it went out on South American TV then some people must have been very confused. Sultoon even finished on a Clifford "niep" expression.

Having got into the stadium, we found that we had a great view (see also picture below), and had behind us some bloke with an American accent who seemed for the first five minutes of his presence to be quite good value, principally because of his efforts with the fancy dress. However, the fact that he was to sit near us and get increasingly irritating as time went by soon convinced us otherwise.

A strange woman announcer made observations about Ibaraki's industrial history, and the atmosphere was a little strange, with only a few genuine fans of each country able to make it (not to mention a few empty seats scattered around the stadium). However, this didn't really detract from our enjoyment. We yelled in unison at Markus Merk, the fourth official, as he patrolled the touchline pre-match, but couldn't get his attention, much to our disappointment. There were a couple of banners that provided amusement : one, "Perdon Saviola", wasn't funny in itself but added the word "Perdon" to our World Cup vocabulary, while one, "Marijuana + Football", provided great amusement, for two main reasons -

1) not only was there a picture of a marijuana leaf, but the first "o" of "football" had been filled in with the "A" symbol for Anarchy;
2) the banner fell down limply only a few minutes after having been put up, never to return.

Once the match kicked off, Nigeria were a little over-defensive, and gave Veron too much time to spray nice passes around. Ortega looked good on the ball, and Sorin looked dangerous as wing-back. Still goal-less at half-time ("Argentina and Nigeria are tied at Zero!", as the announcer informed us enthusiastically), so I went over to join the Nigerian fans briefly.

The second half livened up a bit when Argentina scored (a Batistuta header at the far post from a corner), forcing Nigeria to attack. They looked increasingly dangerous without getting any real chances, which made it annoying that they'd been so defensive at first; the surprisingly impressive Diego Placente was instrumental in keeping them at bay, having only come in a few minutes before kick-off when the announcement was made that Ayala suddenly couldn't play.

Anyway, it finished 1-0, and as we wandered out, a philosophical Nigerian fan informed us : "When 2 people fight, one must lose. Thanks for your support."

Before we'd made it much further, some random scrawny-looking Japanese bloke attached himself to us; he followed us all the way to a cafe called "Ramen Land" which we found on the way back to the station. Here we decided to stay, since we were desperate to find somewhere with a TV that would show England playing Sweden. This fitted the bill, so we settled down, with Yuhei facilitating conversations between us and the value couple at the next table. Meanwhile, our stalker, who was revealed to be a painter, ingratiated himself to us by buying us a drink, before bantering Fox about his terrible chopstick-holding technique. George, from his seat at the other end of the table, thought all this highly amusing, and proclaimed the bloke great value, leading Fox to a theory that perceived value and distance from the subject were directly correlated.

However, we successfully batted the bloke out, and he left shortly before England v Sweden, to our relief. The game, of course, you all remember, and it left us all feeling a little disappointed, despite the fact that a draw wasn't really a bad result. However, we were cheered up by the generous proprietor of Ramen Land volunteering to give us a lift to the bus-stop for the long journey home - another example of ludicrously good etiquette from the Japanese.