I TRIED hard to ignore it last Thursday but I just couldn't. Football is about as interesting to me as watching a bunch of shrieking men wearing silly face paint, watching other men running around with a small ball.

But I got drawn in to the hysteria of it all. I felt an adrenaline surge at 7.50pm as I heard the roaring cheers from a nearby pub during my cycle ride home from work. I had decided to assiduously avoid any human contact for the next two hours so I wouldn't be drawn into mindless statements on the greatest of Wayne-who-he?

But as I passed a heaving pub during half time, I felt the alcohol-laced lure of the mob. Perhaps I was feeling the loneliness of the outsider but it suddenly seemed important to know who was winning, if only to prepare myself for endless smugness and match analysis if England were to win.

I peered into a pub and beckoned to a friendly looking man with a number nine Rooney strip. Who's winning? I asked tentatively, and wished I hadn't the minute he began his blow by blow account of the match so far.

Another few miles and I was still trying to shrug off the mounting tension as I saw the crowds watching on wide-screen, chatting and cheering good-naturedly to strangers and friends. If you forgot it was the football uniting them, it felt pleasant, like a street carnival.

Even my mum had relented and was pasted to the screen in the front room when I got home. She still hadn't figured out which colour England were wearing but she had got sucked into watching, like any other self-respecting football hater.

As the temperature of the nation shot up during the penalty shoot out, I stubbornly switched over to Big Brother, though I have to admit to taking sneaky peaks every few minutes, emotionally confused in my intermingled viewing of Victor's outburst over the weekly shopping list crossed with Beckham's missed penalty kick.

I am reluctant to admit it but I was actually rooting for Portugal. Perhaps this makes me the second most hated figure in England next to the Swiss referee who disallowed that last minute goal, but I just thought it would be nice for the host country to win. And, more selfishly, I wanted football to go away and perhaps if England lost, we could stop being obsessed by it.

But in spite of having rooting for the other team, and in spite of hating the beautiful game, I did feel a certain disappointment when I woke up the following morning. The strange, unifying feeling of national hope and optimism had dissipated and people in supermarkets and bus queues returned to being miserable and ignoring each other.

Sad that a sporting event is the only thing that draws us together these days and shame that it had to end so soon.