I loved football, until the day my husband cheered on Germany

IREMEMBER the exact date I fell in love with football. It was June 10, 2000, and I was on holiday in Jamaica, staying at Ian Fleming’s old house, Goldeneye, with a box-fresh boyfriend. We had a private beach, but all he wanted to do was sit inside, blinds shut against the sun, and watch the football. So I could either spend the holiday alone, or join in. I joined in.

He was a Spurs supporter, and – like every man I have ever met – said he ‘could have played professionally, I was that good’.

At first, having never watched football before, other than catching glimpses of Rivellino’s ’tache in the 1970s while begging my three brothers to let me watch the showjumping on the other side, I was clueless.

‘Which way are they going?’ ‘Their goal is the one on the left.’ ‘Does that mean the one they are trying to aim at?’ ‘No.’ ‘I like their outfits.’ ‘They are called strips.’ ‘Do the fans change ends at half time?’ ‘No.’ ‘Who is the one with the very straight, shiny hair?’ ‘ That would be Paolo Maldini. That one is Totti.’ I thought, fleetingly, that my future husband was possibly gay before I learned he was alluding to Francesco Totti, the Roma player with the Roman nose.

So began a love affair. Not with each other, but between me and football. Over the next seven years I became intimate with the names of not only all the Premier League players, but the gods who played in La Liga.

The highlight of the week would be when we would lie in bed watching Football Italia. The show’s host, James Richardson, would deliver his edicts seated at a café table on some ancient square, sipping espresso, wearing a V-neck Smedley sweater. It was a revelation. I’d thought football was about muddy shorts, hooliganism and the gap in Nobby Stiles’s mouth, but it was suddenly heroic and handsome. I liked, too, that my husband’s face lit up when watching football. He became animated and talkative rather than morose and monosyllabic.

I finally found out he was having an affair during the 2006 World Cup, when he suddenly abandoned a lifelong allegiance to England (a devotion I found touching, given he was Indian), and started cheering on Germany. ‘Why are you supporting Germany?’ I asked him, standing in front of the new HD TV I’d had installed for the occasion, meaning he did that male thing of craning his neck around me in case he missed someone scoring, or blowing snot into their hand (‘Why don’t they ever use a hanky?’). He tapped his nose, as if to say, ‘Ah, well, that is my little secret’. His mistress was indeed revealed to be German-born, but living in New York. A working-class boy from Ealing turned out to be very cosmopolitan indeed. But when Zinedine Zidane headbutted Materazzi in the final, my now estranged husband and I started talking again. We had to. That’s what football does.

SINCE our decree absolute in 2007, I haven’t watched a single match. That would be too painful, like being a guest at his wedding. My current boyfriend is not remotely interested in football, which prompted me to enquire whether he is in fact ‘trapped in the wrong body’ and ‘would he like to become transgender?’. There is something wrong with a man if he’s not into football; it’s as bad as finding out he never reads books, or only eats foie gras. There was a photo of the England squad boarding the plane to Marseille in the papers last week, and I only recognised one face: that of Wayne Rooney. That is when you know it is over. That is when you know it is the end of the affair.