By 
This World Cup is bending tradition in all sorts of ways: it’s the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, the first World Cup which makes you feel a bit dirty for being excited for it, and it’s the first World Cup to start in the middle of November. Compared to the ethical controversies that have shrouded this tournament that's a minor thing, but still, the fundamental feel of a major tournament in the UK is usually indivisible from being sun-drunk on the first proper summer weeks of the year, and being drunk-drunk from committed pub sessions.
That happily dazed feeling of wandering out into the sticky evening streets after your country has won an important game, feeling the day’s heat still pulsating out of the concrete and brick and seeing hundreds of people around you in the same emotional state, is a deeply magical thing. It’s one of the few remaining things that FIFA has yet to ruin.
All the usual rules of polite society are suspended. Unexpected things just happen. After the penalty shootout win against Columbia in 2018 I saw a man dancing on a bus stop shelter. My friends got kettled in a big crowd somewhere around Borough, and it turned into a small-scale rave. I went very briefly viral in the afterglow of England’s quarter final win over Sweden.
Whatever happens, you’re going to spend at least some time watching this World Cup in the pub. But this time, walk down the street and you’ll hear ‘World in Motion’ pounding from one pub as ‘Proper Crimbo’ bleeds from another. We need some new rules for a new reality.
First: rounds. The round system is simple in June. Everyone gets something fizzy and cold, and everyone’s content with it. You repeat that until everyone’s a bit dozy, then you grab a cheese savoury sandwich from Sainsbury’s to stabilise things, then you get the bus home. Fine.
But in November, everything’s up for grabs. Someone wants a porter. Someone else wants to know if they do mulled wine, and if not then they’ll have a red wine. Actually does anyone else want one and we can split it? How many glasses do we want?
They do mulled wine but then when you order the big cauldron thing’s nearly empty, so you wait another 10 minutes and it turns out this tiny glass is six English pounds thank you very much. You edge through the packed pub with your seven separate drinks for £46.20 and find that someone’s piled loads of coats on your seat. (You are, at least, getting better value than the fans who've made it to the £12-a-pint fanzones in Qatar.)
To avoid this, make it clear that you will be buying one (1) type of drink per round. Everyone’s on Camden Hells/prosecco/negronis/hot chocolates for the next half hour.
And while we’re on the subject, the other great innovation in fan culture at the last World Cup was the flying pint in a plastic pot.
Any goal, whatever the jeopardy level, was greeted with a spray of beer. It's a shit idea for idiots anyway, but try that in a pub garden in, say, Carlisle, on, say, 12 December, and you’re liable to give someone hypothermia. Celebrating by sending a Baileys cartwheeling across a chalet-style outdoor bar simply will not do.
So no pint-launching, please. If you must throw something, try something seasonally appropriate. Mince pie, panettone, something like that.
And because we’re indoors this World Cup, organisation is more vital than ever. There aren’t enough decent pubs to hold all of us, and watching England at a major tournament is too important to waste it in bad pubs.
I have a friend who’s spent weeks working up a spreadsheet of pub options across every possible permutation of England’s journey. That’s arguably too much organisation, but you’ve got to admire the clarity of vision.
On a fundamental level I disagree with booking tables in pubs to go for a drink. It’s completely antithetical to the idea of The Good Pub, where nothing is planned and everything unfurls at its own pace.
This time, needs must. But when you do book a table, you’ve all got to arrive at the same time. Sending one lone scout up ahead to take up a seat and keep apologetically telling people 'Sorry yeah got a few mates coming, sorry about that cheers' is cruel enough in high summer, but in December? When it's pissing down?? In this economy??? Unforgivable.
And finally, the most important rule change of all. (Wales fans can skip to the end. Your national team's culture is too well-adjusted to need this one).
Even during England-Iceland in 2016, when the whole team – including everyone on the bench – seemed to go into a fugue state, blinking furiously, imploring something, anything, to happen, the bad vibes dissipated enough that the pub in Gateshead I watched it in found the whole thing quite funny.
But the lack of a comfortable spill zone outside the pub means we’re all going to be scrunched up together for extended periods of time. The mood music around Gareth Southgate’s England has settled into a minor key again since the summer. If things don’t go brilliantly, there might be flashpoints.
But however heated things get in your cramped boozer, try to stay cool. Things are bleak enough this winter without also crucifying Jude Bellingham. Save your anger for FIFA – and let’s hope nothing like this ever happens again.
