POLAND 1-1 GREECE

Two years ago I set out to watch every game of the 2010 World Cup finals. I failed.

What I succeeded in doing was discovering the secret truth at the heart of major international football tournaments: a lot of the games are not very good.

So, as Euro 2012 appeared on the horizon like a vast continental competition, I decided to take a different approach. Sod it!

Some games I will watch - some games I will miss - some games I will intentionally avoid - some games have all the luck.

And some games I will want to watch but simply not be able too.

This is where the magic happens.

These are the fixtures that live in the memory, like girls you never kissed. These are the battles that will always seem exotic and magical, because the thought of them is always so much better than the reality. Just like girls.

Take England beating Spain on penalties at Euro 96. As Stuart Pearce smashed home his redemptive penalty, I was selling paracetamol in Boots the Chemists (no more than eight in 24 hours):



But I never sat through the two disallowed Spanish goals. Or their two penalty claims. Or Steve Stone coming on in extra time.

I was too busy supplying contraceptives to the good and virile people of Somerset.

And that's just one game in a list of near misses: Gascoigne's goal v Scotland in the same tournament (and with the same pharmaceutical excuse); England's 1998 victory over Colombia (landscape gardening in the United States); and a girl called Ruby in a Taunton nightclub.

THE STORY SO FAR

Match of the tournament: Poland 1-1 Greece

Player of the tournament: Przemyslaw Tyton (Poland)

Goal of the tournament: Lewandowski (POLAND v Greece)