2021 and memories of 2008

It was always a mystery why our son Michael chose to live in Madrid. 

As a family, we had no contact with the city and, indeed, the only part of Spain he knew was Barcelona, where we’d sent him to stay with a friend of ours for a week or two when he was nearly at the end of his school years. But Madrid? Neither he nor even we had ever been there. 

A couple of years after he’d moved to Spain’s capital, his brother Nicky was approaching the end of his degree.

“What are your plans for the autumn?” Michael asked him.

“I don’t really have any,” Nicky replied.

“You do now. You’re going to get yourself qualified as a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, I’ll get you a job in the school where I’m teaching, and we can get a flat together in September.”

That was all some fifteen years ago. Both still live in or near the city. And we, of course, had to get to know it quickly and thoroughly. Why, these days I can practically find my way across it. Another few visits and I shall be out of what Michael tells me is called the “archipelago syndrome”: I know the area around various Madrid metro stations pretty well, but still have a way to go to connect them all up in my mind – islands of acquaintance for the moment, separated by seas, though shrinking seas, of ignorance.

It was a joy getting to know Madrid. The Casa de Campo, for instance, once the king’s private backyard, behind the palace, now a public park nearly big enough to be regarded as a full forest in its own right. We got to know the Corte Inglés, Spain’s upmarket department store – it would be beneath Boris Johnson’s contempt, of course, since he despises its English equivalent John Lewis, even though most people view shopping there as a luxury. 

The Casa de Campo as I saw it from the cable car in 2011
Once the King's private backyard, now fortunately a public park

At first I believed the name meant the ‘English court’, but it turns out to be the ‘English cut’. That’s all to do with tailoring, from a time when English suits were the envy of gentlemen everywhere. That’s an important distinction to make: the English cut doesn’t, in this case, refer to a tool of government so heavily used by successive Tory governments, with their constant reductions in public services, impoverishing the nation, and above all huge numbers of individual people.

We also saw Picasso’s Guernica beautifully displayed with a selection of related artwork and documentation around it to support the central message of the piece. 

We ate Senegalese food on lively restaurant terraces, or Spanish breakfasts in a hidden gem of a café in the writers’ quarter, and drank wine everywhere.

Nothing, though, gave us as much pleasure as getting to know the Madrileños themselves. And no moment was more powerful in that learning process than the evening of 22 June 2008. A strange and dramatic evening, indeed.

Danielle and I were struck by the silence of the streets. They’re never quiet in Madrid, but on this occasion, they were practically deserted. Only when we penetrated inside a café did we see people: the place was heaving and getting served proved difficult. That’s not because it was too crowded, but because the waitress found it hard to drag her attention away, even for a moment, from the TV screens scattered around the place, and which were equally capturing the full attention of all the other customers.

In faraway Vienna, a football game was taking place. An international. Between two closely balanced sides, producing a nail-biting match. After ninety minutes, at full time, neither side had been able to score. The teams moved into extra time. But that further half hour produced no goals either.

So the match moved to that terrible and agonising phase of the penalty shootout, to determine a winner.

We had left the café by then and were wandering the still deserted streets. We could hear the groans and cheers from the bar entrances or open windows as each side in turn kicked and, generally, scored or occasionally missed. 

Finally, the tension grew almost palpable. We’d reached the point where one of the sides, though we didn’t yet know which, only needed to score once more to win the match. There was a terrible ominous hush in the air. And then – a roar, a veritable explosion of joy, as the doors opened, the bars emptied, the streets filled and the noise grew deafening.

Spain had knocked Italy out in the quarter finals of the European Championship.

It went on to win the whole 2008 tournament. Indeed it won the following World Cup in 2010 and then the European championship again in 2012, the first side ever to win the championship twice in succession. But those later triumphs barely mattered back then.

Because, while Spaniards explained to me that the great rivals were the country next door, France, second only to the French was the country just beyond, Itlay, a relatively short hop across the Mediterranean. To beat Italy was triumph enough, and to do it with such suspense, in a penalty shootout, was extraordinarily satisfying.

Spanish crowds celebrating the win over Italy in 2008

We weren’t staying in Madrid on that occasion and had to drive back to our hotel. That proved difficult. It took us an hour just to get out of the city, the streets were so full of celebrating crowds. But it didn’t matter. I’ve never known a crowd so cheerful, so full of good spirits, so well-disposed to everyone. There was plenty of drink going around, but not sign of the vile alcohol-fuelled aggressiveness I’ve often seen in England. The mood was celebratory, and open to anyone to join in.

That’s when I realised the boys had chosen their country well. The experience contributed to my own readiness to move to it myself when Danielle proposed it eleven years later. We settled in Spain, though in Valencia rather than Madrid – well, the sea, the mountains, and the more affordable house prices were all factors – and so far, we certainly haven’t regretted it. Especially as we’ve found the Spaniards we’ve met around here as cheerful and well-disposed as those who took over the streets on that night in June 2008.

Why am I reminiscing like this now? Why, because Spain and Italy are due to meet again in a European Championship. One round further on, this time, in the semi-finals rather than the quarter-finals.

I don’t know how the match will end. But I suspect it will be fun to see, again, how the people around us react when it’s over.

Especially if Spain wins.