{"id":1102,"date":"2026-06-12T08:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:28:10","slug":"gom-world-cup-diary-2-by-the-time-the-opening-ceremony-finished-id-forgotten-there-was-a-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/gom-world-cup-diary-2-by-the-time-the-opening-ceremony-finished-id-forgotten-there-was-a-match\/","title":{"rendered":"GOM World Cup Diary #2: By the Time the Opening Ceremony Finished, I’d Forgotten There Was a Match"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the Time the Opening Ceremony Finished, I’d Forgotten There Was a Match<\/strong><\/p>\n

I switched on last night to watch a football match.<\/p>\n

That, at least, was the plan.<\/p>\n

What I actually got was an opening ceremony.<\/p>\n

Now, I have nothing against opening ceremonies. If people want to dance about, wave flags and set off enough fireworks to alarm passing aircraft, that’s entirely their business.<\/p>\n

My question is simply this:<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

When did football become the supporting act at its own tournament?<\/p>\n

In my day, the opening ceremony consisted of two teams walking onto a pitch, shaking hands and getting on with it. Nobody felt the need for a giant inflatable globe, a laser display or a singer suspended forty feet above the centre circle.<\/p>\n

Yet here we are.<\/p>\n

By the time the evening’s entertainment had finished, I’d seen dancers, drummers, singers, fireworks and enough flashing lights to guide ships safely into harbour.<\/p>\n

I was beginning to wonder whether anyone had remembered to bring a football.<\/p>\n

The television presenters didn’t help.<\/p>\n

Every five minutes somebody appeared to explain that this was a historic occasion.<\/p>\n

I know it’s a historic occasion.<\/p>\n

That’s why I switched on.<\/p>\n

Then came the inevitable celebrity appearances.<\/p>\n

Now, I freely admit that I am getting older, but there comes a point where a man has to ask himself whether he’s genuinely out of touch or whether celebrities are simply being invented faster than he can learn their names.<\/p>\n

Half the people being cheered appeared to have become famous for being famous.<\/p>\n

By this stage, I’d made a cup of tea, eaten two biscuits and briefly considered going to bed.<\/p>\n

Still no football.<\/p>\n

The strange thing is that when the match finally started, all the dancing, singing, fireworks and speeches were instantly forgotten.<\/p>\n

Nobody was talking about the lasers.<\/p>\n

Nobody cared about the giant screens.<\/p>\n

Nobody was discussing the choreography.<\/p>\n

Everyone was watching the football.<\/p>\n

Which rather suggests that the football was the interesting bit all along.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I simply don’t understand modern sport.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps if people buy a ticket to a football tournament, it’s because they’d quite like to watch some football.<\/p>\n

Anyway, what do I know?<\/p>\n

I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the Time the Opening Ceremony Finished, I’d Forgotten There Was a Match I switched on last night to watch a football match. That, at least, was the plan. What I actually got was an opening ceremony. Now, I have nothing against opening ceremonies. If people want to dance about, wave flags and set off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,94,83],"tags":[91,99,89,86,96,79,98,88,100,87,90,95,97,101,85],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-grumpy-old-man","category-humour","category-sport","category-world-cup","tag-british-humour","tag-fan-culture","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-football-fans","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-modern-football","tag-opening-ceremony","tag-opinion","tag-soccer","tag-sports-commentary","tag-sports-humour","tag-tournament-football","tag-usa-world-cup","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1104,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}