World Cup Special: Theatres of dreams

It's one of those 'where were you?' moments.

Twenty seconds left on the clock. The scores tied at 17-all. England surging forward. Yet another ruck but this one closer to the Australian try-line. The ball comes back to find Jonny Wilkinson. A fast drop-kick sails between the Australian uprights and England have won the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

I remember where I was all right. I was sitting on the sofa at home, my wife out shopping. And as I leapt in the air and screamed and jumped up and down and attempted to kiss the cat because no-one else was there, I felt like the most foolish man in the whole country.

Because 100 yards away, I knew my local - the White Hart - would be packed to the rafters, and those rafters would now be jumping from the building, rattling loose.

We live in what sociologists call an atomised society. We no longer know our neighbours, we don't speak to people at bus stops any more, and we treat strangers with suspicion. We spend more time at home than ever before, cocooned in our safe, padded, wired houses, ordering things in to be brought to our doorsteps.

Bringing the nation together

But we don't necessarily like this state of affairs. Whether it's TV shows like Britain's Got Talent, our collective joy during the first half-day of an unexpected snowfall or the burgeoning number of festivals populating every summer weekend, we yearn for collective, shared experiences.

Even normally bored wives and girlfriends take an interest in the World Cup or the European Championships. Not because they believe the standard of playing excellence just doesn't cut in the day-to-day domestic season but is much better in these showcase competitions, and not because they think the Argentinian team have sexier thighs than Wigan Athletic. Rather, it's because these events are simply too big not to be part of.

It would be nice to think that on Sunday, July 11, we'll see Wayne Rooney put England ahead in the first half of the World Cup Final. If this does happen, when we cut back to a smirking Gary Lineker in the studio, you can bet that before we see endless replays of that glorious goal, we will see footage of thousands of people watching a giant screen in Trafalgar Square erupting with ecstasy as the ball hits the back of the net. Then we'll see Our Boys in Afghanistan watching a big screen in a tent doing the same. Then, we'll go to different pubs around the country, watching different large groups of people, all enjoying the same moment we did. In our atomised society, we need to see that everyone else is having the same experience as us, that we're all part of something bigger.

The male holy trinity

Pubs, obviously, have become a natural venue to watch sport. Since Premier League rights moving to Sky coincided with a gentrification of the game that made it impossible for most fans to afford a ticket, for many the pub is the only option. Fewer than half of UK households have cable or satellite TV, and only a minority of those pay the eye-watering extra whack for the sports packages.

But the World Cup isn't on Sky - it's shared between ITV and the BBC. And yet, even those who don't take much of an interest in domestic football will still go to the pub to watch it instead of sticking a four-pack of Carling in the fridge and settling down on the sofa.

In fact, a 2007 study revealed that many believe the experience of watching a game in the pub is superior not only to watching it at home, but even to being in the stadium itself.

Professor Mike Weed from Canterbury Christ Church University found that enjoying the game was more about sharing the experience with your mates than about physical closeness to the pitch. "The pub provides a place where the male holy trinity of alcohol, football and male bonding come together," he claimed in an article in the journal Soccer and Society. Having gone down the pub for every single game in the 2002 World Cup, he concluded: "Because the space is smaller the chants feel more intense and louder. Everybody is on the same side. People want to be involved in a celebratory atmosphere."

His article is useful reading for any publican who wants to maximise revenue from this lucrative period. Because while much of the above could apply to the stadium itself, it claims that pubs actually have a better atmosphere now that stadia have been sanitised. All-seater venues with gentrified crowds, where you have to queue for 20 minutes to pay through the nose for a really badly kept beer in a crappy, cheap plastic glass - if you can get a drink at all - means the atmosphere in pubs often beats that at the ground itself.

And the inability of some authorities to distinguish between threatening, abusive behaviour and loud, boisterous but ultimately good-natured support, means stewards can eject you from the ground if you swear, shout too much, stand up too often or wear the wrong thing.

A pub showing a big game becomes a different environment. It's rowdier than even a normal Friday or Saturday night. But as Professor Weed points out, pretty much everyone is on the same side. Rowdiness does not equal potential trouble (as anyone who has ever visited Oktoberfest can attest) which is why proposals to ban football colours from pubs during the World Cup are as ineptly misguided as they are stupidly insulting.

The World Cup presents licensees with a simple choice: if you're not that keen on the idea of the noise and bustle, advertise yourself as a football-free pub where people can just relax away from it all.

But if you want to go for it, understand why people are there and the communal experience they've come to enjoy. Think about how you can build the atmosphere an hour before the game - perhaps with some kind of sports-themed quiz, or by offering face painting. And after the final whistle, think about how you can keep the party going instead of letting everyone stream for the door. Especially if the right team wins, people won't just want to go home, but they may need reasons to head back to your bar rather than someone else's. Games, music, pies - you get an incredible spike in takings during that 90 minutes. Remember, you're a better venue than the stadium itself, and see if you can make that spike last for three or four hours.

The only thing outside your control is whether Rooney gets that bloody ball in the back of the net. But even there, the people hollering "SHOOT!" at your big screen would beg to differ, genuinely believing, in that moment, that your boozer has a direct link to the field of dreams.