A SEA of red and white shirts and a jam-packed pub. This was no surprise, as many of those were hot women wrapped in flags and covered in face paint.

Shortly before kick-off I saw a hot friend lock up her shop to dash off in the direction of the nearest big screen TV with a frantic look in her eye.

The trend of sexy women appearing at football matches has been going on for a while and few could have failed to notice the lusty television cameramen focusing on female fans. I’m sure the sponsorship fat cats must love this because hot women always look amazing in football tops.

Sadly, this is not the case for many men and a strip designed for an elite athlete can be rather unflattering on the average beer-swilling male fan. I try to be forgiving of any that seem to be bulging a bit too much around the middle by reminding myself that it is struggling to contain a middle-aged man, a small boy and a frustrated warrior.

Maybe if I could build up more footballing knowledge I could tap in on this sporting breed of fitties.

The truth is I have never been a particularly good “lad” in this respect.

I watch all the England matches and follow Saints but I daren’t say I’m a fan for fear vehement supporters would quickly expose my shortcomings.

I’m the kind of fan who will clap and say “good goal”. I am far too inhibited to start pelvic thrusting at the pitch and leaping into the arms of other men.

To try and get over my inhibitions, I went to Wembley to see Saints march to victory and found I was able to yell at the players as is the done thing, albeit in a slightly bashful way.

In the hope of building on this progress my younger brother Nick took me to the Chelsea/Portsmouth FA Cup final. We resolved not to talk about Saints from Eastleigh onwards for fear of drawing attention to ourselves.

When we got to the stadium a toothless hag tried to sell us random tat with the Pompey logo on it – it was like the Portsmouth version of The Apprentice.

When we looked at our tickets, we realised we would be sitting with our bitter rivals and I began to be grateful for my celebratory restraint. I feared our ability to walk on our hind legs may have already marked us as outsiders. And a thousand marrow-shaped heads turned in our direction when Pompey missed a penalty and my brother leapt in the air, cheering with gay abandon.

The one slight advantage of going out of the World Cup is Eng-er-land will lose the extra syllable it gains during major tournaments.