Today's game is the one we'll remember

Today is a day many of us will remember for much of our lives. It's one of those days. With a rush hour in which there was no rush and the most social breakfast time in English history as people attended parties all over the country, it's a day with a difference all right, a great day, a fun day, a feast of sport day.

I know that people talk about the World Cup Final of 1966 as being a memorable moment of national unity. Well, yes, it was, up to a point. But you have to remember that back then football was a different game, a workingclass game, supported by a good deal less than the entire country. Geoff Hurst and Gordon Banks may have their names chiselled into the national consciousness now, but, for non-football fans, their fame has grown with the years.

Even the famous World Cupwinning commentary phrase from Kenneth Wolstenholme, "They think it's all over. It is now!" didn't become a catchphrase until years after the event.

In fact, and it embarrasses me to have to admit this, it wasn't until England won the World Cup in 1966 that many people, including me, discovered football, and, brought up playing with an oval ball, realised just how much we'd been missing.

By comparison, today's game in Japan against Brazil captured the imagination of all classes and all age groups, girls just as much as boys. Years of Premiership and European football on television have done their job. Never in England was any kind of game in any sport so eagerly anticipated as this one.

How many of us stayed away from work today? Millions. How many more of us only arrived halfway through the morning, and a little bit the worse for weather, too? Many millions more.

Killjoys, and there's always one in every office, have, I'm sure, spent the day shaking their heads and mumbling bad-naturedly into their filing cabinets about the idiocy of national hysteria, lost working hours and even a loss to our gross national product.

But anyone who hasn't enjoyed the build-up of the past week, hasn't earnestly pretended to fret about Michael Owen's groin or Paul Scholes's fitness, or worried about whether Emile Heskey really is up to the job, has been missing out on something very special.

Because being English, or, for a week, at least, an England supporter, during this extraordinarily heightened, jolly and emotional summer has been special.

All week long, as e-mail attachments have been darting from office to office showing a picture of the Queen's face painted with a cross of St George, as bars and cafes made plans to open at seven this morning, and as those who just had to travel were consulting their early morning timetables to make sure they were by a television set at 7.30, the country was seen wearing one great big smile.

Of course, it helped that England were meeting Brazil today in the quarter-finals, the country that made football into the beautiful game, the country who gave us samba and style, football by the surf and in the sunshine, and memories of Pele as a young man before he became a Viagra salesman.

And, since we've been reminded almost every waking hour either on radio, TV or in the newspapers, of just what happened last time England and Brazil met in the World Cup in 1970 (we lost), it's been impossible not to compare the way we are now with the way we were then.

Materially the vast majority of us are so much better off today, it almost makes us smile with nostalgia to remember our simple ways back in 1970, the year the first jumbo jet landed at Heathrow, but when flying was out of the reach of most people.

As our grandparents used to say as they recounted their days out at Blackpool or Brighton, in which they did everything there was to do and still got change from a shilling: "We were poor but we were happy." Well, compared with today, it was a bit like that in 1970. Quite poor: but quite happy, thank you - apart from The Beatles having just broken up. It's all relative.

But looking at an old photograph of the England team of that year as they prepared to take on the mighty men of Brazil, the wondrous Pele, Jairzinho and Tostao, and seeing a definitely flabby Francis Lee, who nevertheless had a thunderous shot, or Bobby Charlton actually smok ing a cigarette, it's possible to see more than just a change in our national wealth.

The much bigger change has been in attitudes. A kind of national innocence, which bounced along on the optimism of the Sixties, has gone since then. Or do I, I wonder, mean that a national spirit of amateurishness has been replaced by a cooler professionalism?

We British were once worldfamous as plucky amateurs. Somehow we always, or usually, seemed to muddle through. Today, everyone is a professional, they have to be to succeed, though it shows more in sport.

You don't have to compare the protein-rich diets of today's players with the chips and steak tastes of 32 years ago to see that. Just look at what happens when players swap shirts at the end of a match.

Back in 1970 our England boys looked like craggy, pasty lads in a park on a hot day who've taken their shirts off and put them down for goalposts. Today, when the shirts come off, we see a shimmering squadron of beautiful, muscular bodies.

There are some who say that professionalism and money have taken the fun out of football. I have to disagree. This year, we're seeing the best World Cup ever, with little nations taking on and beating big ones. Millions of people the world over are gripped, thanks to the professionalism of the trainers and their players.

Probably more than any sport, football is a total democracy, and a total theatre, in that we can never forecast for certain who will win. Not for sure, anyway, as we discovered last Sunday when Ireland were knocked out.

And not today either. That's the drama of it. That's what's kept us smiling all week.

That's why today was so special.