As a skint 23-year-old earning £9,000 a year, the author attended two weeks of the USA 94 World Cup with a friend. They took in two goalless draws, including South Korea 0-0 Bolivia at Foxboro Stadium, and soaked up the atmosphere of a tournament that remains a personal favourite 32 years later.
The tournament heralded a more commercialised future for football, with fears of hooliganism from host media and European sneering at the US audience's perceived lack of sophistication. FIFA president João Havelange even suggested splitting games into quarters. Yet these fears did not materialise; USA 94 set a still-standing World Cup average crowd record of 68,991 and the football surpassed expectations after Italia 90's cynical stodge.
In New York, the author watched Ireland v Italy at an Irish festival in Queens after failing to buy tickets. The match was a huge diasporic celebration, with Irish fans from Dublin, New York, London and Glasgow. Paul McGrath produced what the author considered the finest individual defensive performance, and the party continued late into the night despite police drawing batons.
A striking feature of USA 94 was the number of British neutrals attending. At the South Korea-Bolivia game, groups of Cardiff, Southampton and Derby supporters made themselves known, along with a groundhopper from Bury. The author paid $25 (£41 today) for a decent seat behind the goal, though the stadium experience included officious stewarding, obtrusive sponsorship and an excessive police presence that jarred with the low-key game.
