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the berlin diaries

Dienstag, 4. Juli 2006

At a quarter to five on Friday, I'm coming home from the Turkish market, and there are rather more people with gold, red and black stripes on their faces than usual. For the past month or so, there have been a fair few greasepaint flags about, but when the rate rises from a daily average of one in ten to ten in ten... twenty Euro says it's Germany vs. Somebody, sometime in the next half an hour.

There are about cafés and bars every three buildings on our street, and nearly all of them have televisions facing out onto the pavement and outdoor tables. Our flat is on the fourth floor, but it's warm enough to have the doors onto the balcony open, which means we know how the match is going by the cheers and groans coming up from the street: oooh – ooh – OOOH! – ohhhh. We crack in the thirty-eighth minute and switch the television on. Nothing happens for a very long time. Half time. We switch the sound off – oh, don't worry, with the windows open we'll know if anyone scores – and flick through magazines.

Argentina's scored! One-nil, and suddenly, I'm all for Germany. It would be terrible if Germany got knocked out now, and there was no more of this crazy, infectious street- football mania. When the Germany-Sweden game was on, I frightened myself by suddenly coming over all English and Anyone-but-Germany: "I suppose I'm supporting Germany," remarked my girlfriend (Irish). "Aw, look at them! Aren't they sweet!" crooned our dinner guest (German). "Smug sodding bastards," I snarled from the corner. Now we're into the quarter-final, I'm having a drastic change of heart.

More nothing happens. And then – KLOSE SCORES! Eleven minutes to go! There's a roar from the street and we run out onto the balcony to look. A couple of fireworks go off, and someone sounds an aerosol horn. Bnarrf! Strangers are running into each other's arms and hugging. A taxi driver slams on his brakes and gets out to jump up and down for a bit. A stout, middle-aged woman in hijab looks completely baffled as her two teenage daughters run across the road, confer excitedly with a bloke sitting outside a pub, and then come dancing back across the road pumping their fists in the air. Yeah? YEAH!

But, as you no doubt know by now, that's just the half of it. The remaining eleven minutes go quickly. Then four minutes of – extra time? Penalty time? My girlfriend and I confer, but neither of us can remember how it works. When's the penalty shootout? They all get massages and then carry on for another ten minutes. Then swap ends and have another ten minutes. I've knitted three inches since full-time, and still nobody's won. Finally it's the penalty shootout. Neither of us know whether it's best out of five or whether it's like tie-breakers in tennis. Where's a straight man on the rare occasions that you need one?

Germany scores! The street goes mad. Argentina scores! This is what it sounds like when three hundred people mutter swearwords simultaneously. Germany scores! Again, the street goes mad. Argentine misses! The street goes its maddest yet, and the camera pauses on Angela Merkel punching the air. Then Germany scores – Argentina scores – Germany scores – ARGENTINA MISSES! We're back out on the balcony, and the street is full of people dancing and hugging. Bang! – there are fireworks going off everywhere, some of them rather alarmingly close. A couple of people get into their cars for the express purpose of honking their horns. I wave deliriously at people on the neighbouring balconies and whistle with my fingers in my mouth, in that way that my mum calls uncouth. The sun comes out. There are people dancing with enormous flags on poles. Yuss! I may have once been English, but that seems to have worn off.

Later in the evening, I go to get a film out. There are no cars moving at normal speeds, just dozens and dozens crawling along at fifteen miles an hour to maximise the driver's horn-honking and the passengers' flag-waving opportunities. A convertible goes past with two women standing in the backseat crying and laughing, closely followed by a benovolent-looking police-car. Then three bikes (because this is, after all, Berlin) all with fluttering flags stuck behind the saddle. A little boy, his face entirely covered in smudgy gold, red and black. And then a car with four teenage lads leaning out of the windows waving German flags. As it goes past, I see that the entire roof and back window are covered with a Turkish flag the size of a double bed. Rock on!

In the DVD shop, the bloke behind the counter scolds me for bringing the DVD case to the counter when I should have just told him the number. "Ah, come on," I say. "You've just beaten Argentina! You can't be cross!" He points out grumpily that there is no TV reception in the shop, and that he therefore saw the first fifteen minutes ("When nothing happened!") and missed all the excitement. He's not really one for football, but he does like a good penalty shootout, when the tension's really racked up. And this has been a good World Cup, so far: not much aggro, everyone's pretty chilled out. Another car goes past honking its horns, and I tell him about the car I saw with the Turkish flag. "You see, though," he says, "there are all these Turkish kids, and Indian kids, running around with the flag now, but when the World Cup is over, they will go back to their somewhat peculiar ways." It's one of those things that middle-class, leftwing, anti-racist Germans say to each other perfectly cheerfully, which in equivalent English circles would have your friends quietly writing you off as a secret BNP voter. "Works both ways though, doesn't it?" I answer. "All these Germans perfectly willing to think that the Muslim kids are German whilst the football's on, but when it's finished, they'll be all, who d'you think you are?"

Thankfully, he takes the point. "Oh yeah – oh yes! Germans say, oh really, you were born here? Why, you speak such good German! Better than me, you bastard... So come on, then, what do you reckon for tomorrow's match? England or Portugal?"

I tell him my dreadful confession: I'd be quite happy for England to be knocked out tomorrow. Anything rather than a Germany/England match, never mind a Germany/England final. We'd be too obnoxious, whichever way it went. And a win for Portugal would make my tall, blond, living-in-Lisbon friend happy, because he's feeling rather distinctive. Besides which, if we're only going to win the World Cup once every forty-odd years, I'd rather be in the country and at least get to share the euphoria. Imagine if I had to wait until I was sixty-seven before we won again!

So for now, I'll fail – or pass? – the Norman Tebbit test, and start learning my German football chants. Let's just hope I have cause to use them after Tuesday, eh?