JUST JAMIE

IT'S my week off and, according to the book of unwritten rules, I really should be making the most of it.

Late nights should precede very late mornings, if not early afternoons, while the rest of the day should be reserved for absolutely nothing.

Why then is it that at 7.30 in the morning I was sitting there in my front room. Football. Football and the patriotism it drags out of every one of us. No other sport would make me get up at a ridiculous early time on a day off and no other sport would have me willing on my country to such a level I jump up and down in front of the TV wearing my pyjamas.

And on several occasions spilling my cornflakes.

And so I found myself sat there in eerie silence. The rest of the street was either still asleep, or had already set off to work. Not me. I had toyed with the idea of going to the pub to watch the match, savour the atmosphere and all that, but beer is the last thing on my mind at that time. Still should that attitude have changed I had four cans of bitter in the fridge with my name on. Forward planning is the key.

The other reason I stayed at home was because occasions like this usually bring out the hangers-on. Those who watch England because it's the right thing to do. Most notably the girls.

I wanted actually to enjoy the match, not just go along because everybody else was, and I didn't want said enjoyment to be in any way marred by giggly girls shouting out "penalty" at every occasion, their painted faces smudged by early morning alcopops.

Football does that to people like no other sport. You won't find bosses laying on big screens at work so their valued employees can watch the Test match. There's the real danger it will send them all to sleep for one, and besides, who cares about cricket? And I'm sure the giggly girl with the smudged face paint has little, if any, inclination that Tim Henman has been seen wielding a tennis racquet this week in London.

That's because no one's bothered about that either. Come Wimbledon, the same girl might be heard to shout "Henman" at a TV screen, but only if he gets to a semi-final or (as if) the final. Patriotism has its limits you know. You can't follow all your country's heroes and achievers. Only the popular ones.

Such as boxing.

Why anyone would want to enter a sport just to get battered really is beyond me, but the public can't get enough. And when we can't produce champs of our own, only second-rate panto acts, we trawl through the list of contenders and claim them as our own.

"Lennox Lewis once ate fish and chips you know. He must be British. Quick, drape a Union Jack around his shoulders and take his picture."

I tried to stay up for the fight in the early hours of Sunday but only as a test of my endurance, nothing to do with the boxing itself. If it was on at a normal hour, I would have avoided it altogether. We didn't pay to watch it, instead we huddled round the wireless, like how they would have listened to Cooper v Ali, and waited for it to start. Then I fell asleep.

I'm not dissapointed anyway. If anything I wanted Tyson to win. Who knows, perhaps he's partial to a cup of tea and we could claim him as our own. But it didn't matter, I wasn't bothered.

Now if that was football, sleep would not have entered my mind.

JAMIE DIFFLEY