Roof 0: Poland 1
Who cares what an angol thinks, but I must take this opportunity to congratulate Poland. The way the nation reacted to the National Swimming Pool debacle was beautiful. I'm serious – it had all the characteristics of a mature, self-confident people responding to one of those unavoidable national embarrassments that every country suffers from time to time.
You might be thinking I've finally lost my mind. How can a cancelled match in a brand new, state-of-the-art national stadium be something to be proud of? It isn't, but the way the country has responded with good humour, rather than with denial or violence, is something to be proud of.
Consider the contrast with another football story from Serbia on the same day. The England under-21 team were greeted with disgusting racist chanting from the crowd, because some of the team happen not to be white and because some Serbians are idiots.
It was a national embarrassment for Serbia. And how did the Serbian government respond? By denying it had happened. The world saw unambiguous footage of Serbian fans making monkey noises, followed by Serbian officials saying Serbian fans did not make monkey noises. The result: Serbia looked like a primitive dictatorship that doesn't understand how television works.
Now consider what the world saw from Poland. Some fools failed to close the roof when it started raining, and the match had to be cancelled. The fools responsible said they were sorry, and made some excuses. Nobody tried to deny that the roof existed, or that a match had been cancelled, or that rain had fallen. Fans responded by hilariously surfing across the waterlogged pitch, or by taking pictures of themselves wearing snorkels.
People were angry, but they responded with open hearts and wit. From what I've heard from England fans who travelled to the match, they were also angry, but they enjoyed the light-hearted pitch invasion and the hundreds of facebook satires. Give an Englishman a laugh in a disastrous situation, and he will go away happy. In fact, he'll probably talk about it fondly for years after the result of the actual match is forgotten.
I'm eagerly anticipating a international swimming competition taking place in Poland in the hope that somebody forgets to fill the pool and everyone starts playing football instead.
Jamie Stokes
