This is now.

And England (soon to officially change our nation's name to Engerland) have finally struggled past mighty Trinidad and Tobago. We huffed and we puffed and we finally blew in the house of paper. Only took about eighty five minutes for the love of god (small g deliberate).
And in contrast to ten years ago, the flats all around are alive with the sound of cheering. Loud and sustained too. Even now I can hear a distant stero blaring out 'Vindaloo' (those of you not from our fair isle might wish to research Fat Les on Google/Wikipedia/iTunes and the like).
In fact virtually every goal in the competition has been cheered so far although it is somewhat heart warming (in a one-dimensional male kind of way) that England is extremely well supported in what is a culturally diverse area.
Now if only we had a team that reflected this level of support...

That was then...

Ten years ago I was living in Glasgow. For those of you who don't remember, ten years ago the European Championships were being held in England (ah the irony). When it got to the semi-final my street, Langside Road, roared in collective excitement when Southgate missed the all important penalty in the all important penatly shoot out and Germany progressed to the final. Scotland loved it. I resolved to leave.
That said, I was fairly loud in celebration of Shearer's early goal. It was probably revenge. Even my tub of Sommerfield's strawberry ice-cream and all the Marlboro light's in the world (plus one or two other things, cough, cough, fear not I don't do that sort of thing anymore) weren't going to pick me up.