Sheeeeeeeeeea-rerrrrrrrrrr!!!

One of the advantages of hanging onto my old WHSmith pocket diaries is that I can do things like this:

Ten years ago from exactly as I post this, I was dancing with my friends in one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square.

England had just beaten Germany 1-0 – our first competitive win over them since The Year That Shall Not Be Named* – and we were very, very happy.

Objectively, the game wasn’t all that good, but a win is a win. Shearer scored not long into the second half, and then an increasingly tense German side repeatedly just failed to equalise. This prompted us to set the pub off on a chant (to the tune of ‘You’re not singing any more’) of ‘Now you know how it feels’.

Then, after Collina, the maestro of all refs, blew the final whistle, we sauntered/staggered from the White Lion in Covent Garden down to Trafalgar Square, where a fantastically good-natured buzz coaxed us into the fountain.

Strange looks from people in the Tube on the way home. Sod it. Great day.

* I’m not counting the three-nation Azteca 2000 Tournament in Mexico in 1985. Really, come on.