Football's coming home?

It's happened to me again - I've gone from being ambivalent at best about the World Cup to being an avid viewer. 

If you recall, this also occurred with the Olympics, both summer and winter, and other sporting events to which I claim to not have an interest.  It's making me think that perhaps I do care more about sport than I would like to admit?

Anyway, having said that, I only watch the England matches in full, and then dip in and out of other games depending on what else is on the television, but as this is something I've taken to doing entirely voluntarily, it's a bit of a turnaround.

You see, the problem is I vividly remember Euro 96.  I knew the words to Three Lions, and my friends and I used to sing it loudly - maybe in tune, who knows? - and for a moment in time we truly believed that football was indeed coming home as promised.

Then it didn't, and it hasn't since 1966 - which I don't remember before anybody cheekily suggests that I do!

But now we've started to dream again.  Watching the Panama game on a very sunny Sunday afternoon, we started to believe that maybe, just maybe, it's going to be our year.

The players are younger and seem hungrier for victory.  They're not mentally-scarred by the penalty shoot-outs that we never seem to win.  They actually look and act like they could be winners.

But whoa there, I should try to rein in my enthusiasm at this point.  This is what we always do.  We all start hoping, then put too much pressure on the players' shoulders, and that's when it starts to fall apart.

We've got quite a way to go yet, let's not get ahead of ourselves and dare to dream.

But with Harry Kane's penalty taking skills (as demonstrated against Panama), who knows, perhaps Gareth Southgate's got a team that can win actually win a penalty shoot-out.

I'm not sure my nerves - and Gareth's, let alone the rest of the nation's - will stand it though!