News

I was greeted with many a horrified look or question when I said of course I would be going to Qatar for the World Cup while five and a half months pregnant. 

Perhaps naively, my only concern was whether I would make it out of my hotel room each day due to the horrendous (and misleadingly named) morning sickness. And my mum's main concern was whether I'd learnt the words to Yma O Hyd, because I was now representing the Welsh side of our family in the biggest choir Qatar would see.

They may try to do things bigger and better here, but they definitely don't have the voices or passion of the Welsh fans.

Before we came out we joined a WhatsApp group, set up by Kelly Cates, for many of the women travelling out here. The wonderful Nicky Crosby, who lives and works here for beIN Sports, was like our tourist board, being hounded with all our questions about who, what, where, and when. But the day before travelling I had time to think about what lay ahead for the next few weeks, and admittedly got quite nervous.

The paperwork seemed endless. I had no clue what on earth I was meant to wear as a pregnant woman in 35-degree heat with no arms or legs on show. And in panic I bought a £17 wedding ring from Accessorise after learning that it's actually illegal to be pregnant here and not married.

As soon as I arrived I relaxed slightly. The staff at the airport literally cheered us in, calling out the names of every country's shirt they could spot – apart from the poor Welsh fans whose shirts they weren't sure of and shouted: "Ah, English? England?" You can imagine the response.

The first night I thought I'd better go and explore. So I dressed in my best long dress, conscious of the warnings not to show shoulders or knees anywhere, and wandered down to the Corniche (think a terribly poor attempt to recreate the Copacabana), where they had big screens showing the opening ceremony.

It was packed with women and kids – and young girls in football kits. I was so confused, as this was not the Qatar I'd been sold. No-one stared at me like I didn't belong, and families welcomed me to share their benches and seats to watch the screens. We spoke in broken English about the strangeness of the ceremony and laughed at our common (read non-common) ground of the teams we supported in England and Europe!

 

The jungle from the desert

The group stages are always a long slog. With eight of my clients working out here – nearly every one of them for a different platform – there were a lot of studios, hotels, and coffee shops to visit. But in comparison to Russia, where no-one was even in the same city, this was a breeze.

With my client Jill Scott still in the jungle for the first few weeks of the tournament, there were also many late nights sitting up watching I'm a Celebrity live at 2am! ITV managed to get me a big screen and a live stream of the show for the final, so shedding a happy tear for her a few Sundays ago was a lovely moment. 

I wanted to get to as many games as I could, having come this far. Being half Welsh and never having seen Wales in a World Cup, seeing Gareth Bale score in the opener will stay with me forever. The atmosphere at the England games was tepid in the group stages, though, and I only bumped in to one person I knew at a game (which is unheard of, but a wave to you Sharona!). Rarely were stadiums completely full, and many 'fans' left well before full time. It  helped with the metro queues but also annoyed me, as tickets were dear!

Schools were shut in Qatar for the duration of the tournament and grounds were definitely more full of children because of this. I wasn't sure where they all hid in the daytime but I'm sure many a local bedtime routine was disturbed for them to experience their first World Cup.

We managed six games in the first week, and four in the second. With the exception of men pushing in front of me in queues (normal football fan behaviour, for which they got my finest south-east London short shrift) and being ignored in a few conversations (also normal football behaviour), I could not have been treated more respectfully. My friend Melissa and I started referring to the pregnancy bump as the 'golden pass' – the minute anyone saw it, we were ushered down a priority lane at games, given seats on the metro, and our bags carried upstairs before we'd even got through the hotel doors.

Essentially World Cup staff (think London 2012 volunteers) were amazing: welcoming, helpful, funny – pretty useless on directions, but no shade being laid there. Security and police were less helpful, fairly rude and definitely 'computer says no'. 'Computer says no' types and I don't tend to get along.

Before each game, fans go through the x-ray machines on the gates. As I am pregnant I am not allowed, so I got taken to the little search room for a body scan, as I had done for every game, and the lady told to me lift my T-shirt up. If I tell you my T-shirt was so tight that you could see my belly button, you'll understand there was really no room for anything under it other than the baby bump. I refused, as I said she didn't need to see my actual stomach, and we got into a stand-off. She genuinely wanted to pat my stomach down with flesh out to check I wasn't hiding anything in there. I'm still fuming.

 

Best lives

Let's be fair though – I definitely chose the best World Cup to be teetotal for. Yes, the atmospheres have often been tame – but not when the Welsh, the Argentinians or the Brazilians are in town. The lack of alcohol at games has definitely lessened the likelihood of abuse or worry that it's all going to kick off, especially when people are tired at 1am after games and marshals are forming you into slow queues for the metro.

It's been interesting to see how many women have travelled from other nations. We met four female Cameroon fans after the Brazil game who were the life and soul and living their best lives – dancing, singing and embracing the injury-time winner. Cameroon v Brazil was magical and fans danced in the streets until long after I sloped off on one of the free metros (which run until 3am and are immaculate).

I loved the protests by Iran – it was a real moment of solidarity when the fans booed the anthem and the players refused to sing it. Many of us held our hair up to show solidarity with Iranian women. Yes, a small, small token – but moments and tokens can be visually powerful.

How can the world be so divisive when at moments like that you feel so together? Essentially, if we could pretend this World Cup was just in Disneyland or somewhere, it would be one of the great World Cups of all time. Unfortunately I can't say it's been amazing without an underlying guilt and understanding of where it has taken place and why.

The football and the tournament have been just brilliant. When I come up for air and think about the place, it hasn't. Should Qatar have been hosting the World Cup? Absolutely not. But do those trying to make it the best experience possible for the fans need to take the blame for that? No. It goes higher. So appreciating human kindness and joy for what it is, while working out how you can best protest and help make change, is all I have felt I can do here. 

I do hope the USA comes under similar scrutiny in four years' time for laws undermining women's rights over their own bodies. We can't have it both ways. It might also be a good time to have a look at our own country without arrogantly polishing our halos.

I will never forget the EUROs final in 2021 and how I felt as a football fan on Wembley Way that day. It could not be in bigger contrast to the pleasant metro trips and meandering fan walks to stadiums here – with no fear of being squashed, trampled over or abused on stadium concourses.

I appreciate that I write this from a position of privilege, and all of us working here are essentially being played in some sort of PR trip, the conductors of which were decided many years ago. The first World Cup in the Arab world should never have been here, but if there's anyone the fingers should be pointed at, it's FIFA, not the locals here. We cannot dismiss the human rights abuses, the illegality of same-sex relationships, nor how many migrant workers died. Ever. It also doesn't mean we can be territorial about the actual game and not let others share it. The Qataris, Saudis, Iranians, Tunisians, Moroccans and Senegalese are so proud and excited to have had all their nations at a Muslim World Cup, and it shows.

As we move into the semi-final stage, with the first African team ever to make that cut, we have to celebrate development in football. I haven't got over England coming so close, or poor Harry Kane's penalty miss, but I can't wait to get him back to Spurs, where we will welcome him home as a hero. I will also celebrate being back home safe and in my beloved London town. Football takes you to some funny places, but Doha probably pushed most of our limits!

Share this article