I’ve done it. I’ve taken the plunge, and bought a big, metallic England flag to attach to the back of the Divorcemobile. I hummed and ha-ed a lot, as a) I know nothing about football and care much, much less and b) everyone knows only racist skinheads go around with England flags on the back of their cars.
Or do they?
Maybe, just maybe, if all the forty-something mummies out there who don’t care tremendously about football in general, but do want to show their children it’s possible to be optimistic about the unlikeliest things, even our chances of leaving South Africa with a trophy, where was I? Oh yes, if all those mummies buy themselves a little England adornment for the duration of the football festivities, maybe we will reclaim back the good old cross of St George and it will come to stand, once again, for that poor old chappy who was convinced he’d slain a dragon but probably just squashed a lizard. To be fair to him, it may well have been quite a large lizard.
So there we have it. We should all get down to Tesco, Sainsbury’s or wherever and get our natty little car accessories now. Even if we don’t win, I imagine some of the money goes to the Football Association, who might be able to use it next time round to buy a team captain who doesn’t b*gger up his knee in the first hour of the first day of practice. Just saying.