Categories: uncategorized
Date: 17 May 2008 16:51:39
Ethnic identity is one of those things which is about as easy to nail as a jellyfish. Yet today feels like a properly English day.
The football, which I currently have half an eye to, may contain a Welsh team (Cardiff) but it is a proper English FA Cup final. It's the first cup final in I don't know how long which doesn't contain one of the usual suspects. Today's match sums up what the English game is really about two teams playing each other where you really don't know who will win and aren't just rooting for the one with least silverware. Roughly 90,000 fans are at Wembley and you know the crowd will be largely made up of people who actually live vaguely near the places their teams are named after or who have some "real" connection.
The weather is grey, and it's trying to rain but doesn't quite seem able to and there was an old woman in the newsagent wearing a clear plastic rain cap.
The newspapers are covering the wedding of a minor(ish) royal and the Guardian contains the s word (socialist).
In an age when these types of things are increasingly rare I'm enjoying today.
Update: Portsmouth have just won, by one goal after a good match and they were actually interviewing an English manager today.