England Expects

I guess it must be an age thing. Four days to go before the World Cup gets under way, and I've yet to so much as glance at a wallchart, let alone get that pre-Christmas tingle that I used to feel. Yes it's the World Cup, you can't pass a petrol station without being reminded of it, and England flags have been fluttering from car windows for weeks already - so obviously at least some people are getting very excited. But the prospect of saturation football coverage for a month isn't the giddying thrill it once was - maybe because anyone with a Sky dish can get that all year round. And as for ramping up the national fervour, I've seen six World Cup finals featuring England and six times felt heartbroken at our exit. No, correction, proud in '90, wondering what might have been in '82, '86 and '98, and the less said about '02 and '06 the better ("first half good, second half not so good"). I'm not sure my reserves of undying optimism have much to spare.

So on the eve of our latest attempt to win the damn thing or at least trouble the scorers in the latter stages, I find I'm struggling to actually care that much at the moment. The last affair, in which we barely mustered five minutes of decent football in five games, still seems all too recent. And for all the talk of a new discipline in the camp under Capello, that just reminds me that our nation's finest seem to have a collective mental age of 14, and if the stern games teacher doesn't keep them in line, they'll be flicking splatterbombs at the board and swapping tatty porn mags in no time.

And that's why - if I'm totally honest - a tiny bit of me actually doesn't want England to win the World Cup. The sight of the squad posing on the steps on the plane about to carry them to South Africa made me realise (a) I only actually like about four of them, (b) I didn't recognise at least three of them and (c) a more criminal looking bunch of dullards it would be hard to find.

Just imagine if - IF - we were to return with the trophy. For starters, Radio 5 Live would self combust. Several players would cash in with hastily updated autobiographies before the wheels touched down at Gatwick. John Terry would put his shirt on eBay. Jermaine Defoe would declare himself a god. Every member of the squad, plus Beckham and Posh Spice, would get an MBE and a couple would get the full royal treatment (arise Sir Wayne of Croxteth). Lord Stevie of G would get a minor government role. The only saving grace would be that everyone would still hate Ashley Cole.