TinyChan

It's a rare occasion when the US football team advance further than England at the World Cup, so the pain is keenly felt by a British transplant in New York, Dom Green.

After four years of living in New York, I'd like to think I've assimilated into the local culture.

I ask cab drivers to pop the trunk. I visit the dentist every three months. I even high-fived a colleague in the office last week, without irony.

But as this year's World Cup approached, I had an overwhelming desire to watch our opening game against Italy with other English people.

People who understood the 48 years of hurt - the Hand of God, the Waddle penalty, the Beckham sending-off, the Ronaldinho free kick, the Ronaldo wink, the Lampard ghost goal... the pain, the pain!

I approached an English pub about booking a room for a group of 30 expats.

In truth, the pub was as English as apple pie, and it took a week's negotiation before the owner finally accepted we wouldn't be sitting down for a three-course meal during the game, and that savouring the duck foie gras would be impossible if Wayne Rooney headed us into the lead in the seventh minute.

Sure enough, 30 English friends gathered in a room that night to experience, in the company of our fellow countrymen, a familiar pattern of blind optimism, depressing familiarity and even more blind optimism. And we did it again, five days later.

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