Moments of joy are best when we share

IWAS in Athens the night Greece won the Euros. It was 2004, just a few weeks before the city was due to host the Olympics, and the place was clean and quiet. Earlier that day my friend and I had hiked up to the Parthenon in the baking heat, wandering its ancient columns and looking out over the city, amazed to find we had the place to ourselves.

But on that warm evening, as this plucky and unlikely footballing nation raced to victory over the host country, Portugal, Athens erupted. Every last little bar and coffee shop was stowed out as excited Greeks gathered round televisions and then spilled out into the streets after the final whistle.

The air was thick with the sound of a thousand car and scooter horns, the sky lit up with myriad fireworks.

In the excitement we were carried along with the good-natured crowd to Omonoia Square, in the heart of the city, where fans shinnied up lamp posts amid a sea of blue and white flags, and the cry of ‘Hellas’ rang out for miles around.

The next day we caught a ferry to the island of Naxos, aware not only that we had witnessed something very special, but that we had been graciously allowed to be part of it, too.

Like many young Scots, in my teens and even into my twenties I went through an ‘anyone but England’ phase as a Scotland supporter. That night in Greece though, changed me. How wonderful, I thought, to be able to share in another team’s success. How much more joyful to celebrate the wins of others than to skulk in high dudgeon and misery at the failure of your own.

And so, tomorrow, for that reason and many others, I will be supporting England in the final of the Euros against Italy. In fact I can’t imagine not cheering them on, instead constructing some over-thought-out tweet about preferring to watch Midsomer Murders on ITVBe, or explaining that my great-granny’s second cousin’s pet cat was half-Italian, so really, how could I support anyone other than the mighty Azzurri?

Look, I know how the English can be about these things. I am, after all, engaged to a Yorkshireman who over the past week and at the slightest provocation has regularly burst into the chant ‘meat pie, sausage roll, come on England, gi’s a goal’. (If this reference means nothing to you, I urge you to live on in ignorance).

There is the commentary and the constantly played, always irritating songs (see above). There is also the lingering suspicion that if England do win tomorrow night, we will never hear the end of it.

None of that, though, is enough to stop me cheering on the England squad. And it has to be said that the always lovely Gareth Southgate and his disciplined, clean behind the ears bunch of players make it a lot easier than some previous incarnations of the England team.

There is also the fact – and I know it’s difficult to hear – that they are simply better than us. Why wouldn’t they be? They’re a more experienced team, drawn from a nation more than ten times the size of Scotland.

There is, I think, a lot of positivity to take from Scotland’s short stint in its first major tournament in 23 years. We have a young and energetic squad who are finding their feet.

The boost of playing in the Euros, not to mention being the only team – so far – not to lose to England, will take them far in the World Cup qualifiers in the autumn.

BUT this is England’s moment. And as a Scot with so many ties to our nearest neighbour, about to marry into an English family, to not cheer them on would seem churlish in the extreme.

As Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar put it on Wednesday night: ‘it’s coming next door.’

There will always be people in Scotland who will never support England. And I understand that. Some Scots will always view England as their greatest rival, although the English don’t, and I suspect never will, see it that way.

For those Scots, it would be the equivalent of a Rangers fan suddenly deciding to support Celtic because they are playing in Europe. Utterly inconceivable. I’m not here to convince anyone they should support England if they don’t feel they can. After all, I think that Midsomer Murders episode is rather a good one.

But I do feel sad for them, that they will miss out on that joy – or indeed, heartbreak – of a momentous moment, and the simple pleasure of celebrating the successes of our friends.