ISpyShanghai

On Friday night the whole of our office trooped out to Hongkou stadium at the Northern tip of Shanghai, to watch England v Germany in a Women’s World Cup group game. It’s a magnificent stadium- all glowing panels on the outside, steeply banked seating and unobstructed views of the pitch. Pretty near capacity too, over 27,000- although by some weird co-incidence, 20,000 of them were Chinese school kids.

Hongkou Stadium, Shanghai

We all had a good time, but it wasn’t much of a match really- maybe the pitch was too greasy after the rain, maybe England were too cautious after Germany battered Argentina 11-0 in their last game, anyway 0-0 seemed a fair result in the end.
Not your usual England v Germany crowd though, the few times I got up to scream some constructive criticism to the players, I sat down to realise that there were 10 cameras and 25 pairs of eyes on me. It was just as well they weren’t serving alcohol in the ground.

Emma is into this whole crazy feminism idea, votes for Women, no more separate bathrooms- all of that, but she was good sport about the few sexist comments I made during the game:

“Better to get them out now James, then you won’t be tempted to write them on the internet” says she.

As a penance then, I freely offer that neither Goalkeeper did a “Crocodile catch” during the game, the women’s boots did not have kitten heels, and when the physios ran onto the pitch, neither injured player brushed their hair or re-applied makeup.
Perhaps David Beckham could take a leaf out of their book.

That guy in the Argentina shirt threw a hissy fit at the stewards. I’ve no idea why