It all started in Spain

About a month ago we had a bit of fun asking you to tell us about the first time you really got hooked on the World Cup. We enjoyed reading your memories and it helped to trigger some memories of our own. World Cup Blog reader Aiden was kind enough to send in his memories from his first time, the 1982 World Cup. He does a great job capturing the passion and excitement that is the World Cup.

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We’re almost there. World Cup 2006 is days away. As the anticipation, the nervousness and the excitement grow, I reflect on where it all started for me.

Zico, Falcao, Socrates, Whiteside and Gerry Armstrong. A few days into the 1982 World Cup, and Brazil and Northern Ireland looked like the teams to beat. Northern Ireland? Why not. They beat Spain, the hosts, and were safely through to the second round.

Oh, what a novice I was. Many world cups later, Northern Ireland are happy to beat Estonia in qualifying and Brazil, and I mean the whole country, expect Jules Rimet to be parading along Copacabana every 4 years.

The first WC in my lifetime was 1974, but unfortunately, total football and ticker tape covered pitches in Argentina, only came to life for me many years later, after I had discovered the world cup.

After 1982 that is. Probably, Aston villa winning the European Cup against Bayern Munich in 1981 is what really lit the football fire inside me. But that’s another story. Ahh…Peter Withe, Trevor Morley, Gary Shaw……….Nigel spink…

World Cup 1982 seemed so alive. Every evening at home was an event. There was excitement, expectation, Cameroon. Poor Cameroon, I was told. Italy will score and score against them just like Hungary did ten times against El Salvador. Yet there they were, scoring soon after Italy had scored first. And 1-1 it remained. Italy. Weren’t they supposed to be good? Didn’t look like it to me. Peru and Poland coped with the azzurri pretty easily.

And then there was Brazil, making football look like fun, always giving me tricks to practice on the roof till it got dark every night, or until evening kick-off on TV. And England, cruising through the first round, Bryan Robson scoring after 27 seconds against France.

So many memories that stayed with me not for 4 years but right up to this day. There was all the colour, the noise, the controversy, usually involving Spain and generous referees. The arguments at school the next day. June 1982 was a wonderful month. If only school could have been cancelled. Or better still if the correct answers to my end of year exam questions were Zico or Paalo Rossi or the Kuwaiti Sheikh’s pitch invasion. Then, June, and my exam results, would have been near perfect, but some school-enforced early nights robbed me of the complete experience.

While Harold Shumacher was ever so innocently knocking Patrick Battiston unconscious, I was having a restive sleep, with fear of long multiplications running through my head. I should have been there watching the French players pick battiston’s teeth up off the pitch, urging them on to see that justice was done. But no, I slept and the bad guys won.

And again, back to the beautiful. I vaguely remember one goal from five of the terrific Italy-Brazil match. One goal, but the spectacle on and off the pitch still lives with me; the Brazilian magicians against the methodical Italians. The energy from the drums, dancing and singing in the stands cascaded down on to the pitch and hit me at home in an unforgettable way. And then the Brazilian tears, contrasting with the Italian celebrations. How could a team, with such artistry and majestic football skill, be beaten by these dour Italians? I felt cheated, that the team that seemed able to play this game like no one else were gone.

Despite that loss, Tele Santana, thank you. As the ghastly win-at-all cost one-nil’s tarnished my football-watching career, I can look back at my Spain ’82 World Cup book and your team make football a beautiful game again.

That may have been the lasting image of my first World Cup. However, Marco Tardelli gave me one more. His goal in the final against West Germany was the beginning of one of the most replayed goal celebrations ever. The image of him floating across the pitch, eyes bulging, fists pumping always seems like it what was meant to be in slow motion. The intensity of his joy was so passionate, so uninhibited and real. Like many of us he probably scored the winning goal at the World Cup hundreds of times over on the school playing field. But there he was, about to lift the world cup and the dreamers like myself felt a different passion. A passion for the beautiful game which would carry us through 4 more years of domestic league watching until Mexico 1986.

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