The World Cup (of Soccer)

Well, the Soccer World Cup is over. We usually don't follow this event in great detail but with France, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as Australia involved, we were drawn into it this year. We could watch live the first match of each day though the second was a bit late. Despite that, we watched the first half of many of the late games. A poster with the draw enabled us to keep track of the results.

While we were in Belgium the week before competition started there was a great deal of excitement already about the "Red Devils". All the kids were kicking balls nd even babies were wearing Red Devils outfits. Most of the Belgian barges had large flags flying. In the Netherlands, as the tournament got underway,  there was orange everywhere. The commercial barges were flying orange flags saying "Hup Holland"; the shops were decked out in orange bunting and it seemed that everyone had bought an orange outfit, sometimes quite stylish. We did raise our boxing kangaroo flag when Australia was playing, but took it down fairly soon after our loss to the Netherlands; the consensus seemed to be that Australia could be proud of their performance. We could console ourselves with the Australian men's victory over the Netherlands the day before in the Hockey World Cup final in the Hague.   

So, we watched each of our "favourites" fall by the wayside. France, Belgium, Brazil and the Netherlands.

Even when we did not have the TV on we had clues to Holland's progress from cheers and shouts in local pubs. When they won the quarter final (after midnight our time) we were woken by the sound of fireworks, horns and sirens. When we did not hear any noise on the night of the semi-final, we were sure the Netherlands had lost. We heard the celebrations of each of their goals in the loser's final, even though everyone we asked said that the match did not mean anything to them. Maybe that was why there were no fireworks, just horns.

Now it is over for another few years; no orange clothes are to be seen and the bunting is cleared away. There are even fewer little boys kicking soccer balls around. No-one is talking about it at all now.

Best Regards,

Penny and Dave

s'Hertogenbosch- Soccer Fever