Welcome

To any football fan, this day is the equivalent of Christmas Eve. In other words, this is the best bit; the anticipation, the tension, the unknown. The bad news is tomorrow we can finally take off the wrapping paper to reveal a succession of dirty, cheating, overpaid, snivelling, whining, egomaniacal excuses for footballers ready to dash all our dreams. And that’s just the Dutch.

Ah, stop pretending that’s not what you’ve signed up for. We know this is what we’re stuck with, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Anyway, there is some good news: England aren’t here! What, hadn’t you heard? Yes, yes, we actually get to enjoy this one without having to listen to embarrassingly biased analysis, or having our coverage interrupted every five minutes by Garth Crooks updating us on where the England players went shopping today. I feel better about this already!

As, some of you may know, I have done this before. See the links for a record of my previous tournament-blogging exploits from two years ago. Same rules apply again here, I’ll be attempting to watch every match possible, and post updates every day on the life of a football obsessive during these crazy biennial periods.

The European Championships, formerly European Nations Cup, and now annoyingly just known as “The Euro’s”, are a very different animal from the dear old World Cup. History shows us that the World Cup is the property of the aristocracy, yet this is far from true of this continental get-together. This is a point hardly worth explaining with the trophy currently in the hands of Greece, but 2004 was just the latest in a succession of oddities thrown up by these championships. Czechoslovakia’s 1976 win over the World and European Champions West Germany is of course the stuff of legend, thanks to this blog’s cover star Antonin Panenka, and a certain penalty. Denmark managed to lift the trophy in 1992 despite failing to qualify for the finals, and if any further proof were needed that this tournament produces the unexpected, close examination of the trophy will reveal that even the name of Spain appears. So anything’s possible.

I had planned to decorate this blog with a fancy video roll down the side, but UEFA in their wisdom appear to have wielded their big copyright stick at anyone attempting to show clips of previous European Championship glories. The Beeb seem to be allowed though, so I’ve instead included a healthy list of links to their excellent archive. Watching these clips demonstrates that this really isn’t England’s tournament, so all the more reason for us to be pleased that they aren’t here to embarrass themselves once again.

As you will have already realised, one of the things any reader will have to cope with throughout the lifespan of this blog, is my complete elation at England’s failure to qualify. I really couldn’t be happier. As an obsessive of football, and of these summer festivities in particular, England just get in the way.

One thing is worrying me though: So far I only have five tournament wallcharts to fill in. This is below my usual standards, and it makes me wonder if I am starting to go soft in my old age. I think a visit to the newsagents tomorrow morning may be in order to search for an emergency supply.

So, one sleep ’til Christmas… sorry, I mean football. That’s football for the next 23 days, including the next 16 days in a row with the first day off (horrific thought) not coming until after the last quarter-final. That’s 23 days for us to watch, wonder, and moan about TV pundits, but more importantly to do exactly what I have done in this opening post: Ignore the fact that the Germans are so obviously going to win.