Win or lose, one England fan will stay till he dies (Feature)

By Andy Goldberg Jun 23, 2010, 11:56 GMT

Port Elizabeth - On the morning of England's biggest game in years super-fan Mark Smith was feeling a little dodgy.

It didn't help that the 30-year-old council worker from the working class northern town of Walsall had downed three bottles of excellent South African wine the night before.

But his real problem on Wednesday morning was nerves.

'I feel like I'm playing,' said Smith, his voice quavering with tension. 'I could hardly eat my breakfast.'

It's an affliction that Smith should be used to by now. The Wayne Rooney lookalike has missed just two games - home or away - of his beloved England team in the last six years and reckons he must have seen over a hundred matches since he first started following them with his dad in 1993.

'With the World Cup you think about it for so long, since we qualified eight or nine months ago, and now all the pressure, and the John Terry,' he rambles worriedly.

'I just think the buildup has been phenomenal, it has meant so much and now it's all going wrong...oh dear.'

But whatever the result in the crucial 'do-or-die' game against Slovenia was later in the day, he'll never give up his hobby.

'My dad took me as a child and now I've got this bug and I can't stop. It doesn't matter how bad they are,' he says. 'I'll always go until the day I die.'

Smith doesn't keep a record of his travels, just like he doesn't tot up the money he has spent on his hobby.

'I'm sure I could have paid off the mortgage, built an extension and bought a nice car,' he admits. 'But my nan always said you can't take it with you and she lived to 90.'

Smith is far from the only mad Englishman who follows his team so blindly. He reckons there are at least three or four hundred who follow the lads around the world. In South Africa there are thousands of them. But they are far from the stereotype of the young English hooligans, most are middle-aged blokes who enjoy a drink or four but like Smith would never cause trouble.

'The true reason I go to away matches is my team in Walsall will never get into Europe,' he explains.

'So I go with England and see the world like in Qatar when we lost to Brazil. It didn't matter. To go to Qatar for three days and see the whole different culture is just fantastic.'

His understanding wife has accompanied Smith on this trip but usually he goes alone.

'I'm very lucky,' he says. 'Her whole family are football fans. So it sounds sexist but on Saturday afternoons the men go to football and the women do the ironing or something.'

Smith admits that he has nothing to show from his years of dedication. He doesn't even keep the ticket stubs or programs. But he seems to remember incidents from every game he's seen, and has strong views on all the England players and managers that have come under his devoted gaze.

'I don't collect memorabilia, all my memories are in my head,' he says. 'I'm not materialistic.'

Years of watching England have instilled him with an unswerving pessimism about the team's chances - even when the former giants of football are playing against a team like Slovenia, a country that only has a population of 2 million.

Smith remembers the day when England lost to Northern Ireland which has a similar population, but hopes that history will not repeat itself.

'We're not out yet, are we,' he says. Then for a brief moment he allows himself to fantasize about winning the game, playing the Germans in the next round and beating them on penalties, before making it all the way to the finals and the ultimate prize.

'Everything could change so easily. That's the beauty of tournaments. But now I just feel like I'm on a tightrope,' Smith says.