The Gardeners' World Blog

So finally, after what feels like years of planning, the 2006 World Cup is under way.

The gestation period for Fifa’s latest extravaganza seems to have been longer than ever – and I speak both as someone professionally involved with the event and as a football fan.

From the supporter’s perspective, it’s just fantastic to have arrived at this stage. Nothing in sport, in my view, comes close to the World Cup. With apologies to the Olympics (that other quadrennial staple of BBC Sport’s output), the sheer scale and undiluted passion of football’s big one simply dwarves every other sporting event.

As a fan (and a father of an unbelievably expectant seven-year-old boy), the last few weeks have felt like the longest, most drawn-out Christmas Eve of all time. “Bring it on – please!” was the message. The anticipation was just becoming too much to take.

But from a professional perspective, the experience has been completely the opposite.

Every day that slipped by was a day’s less preparation time. The countdown clock on our World Cup homepage seemed to be running at twice the normal speed, as our ambitious (some might say over-ambitious…) plans for the BBC Sport website encountered a series of hitches and hurdles. “Don’t let it start yet – please!” was the message. If we could just get another couple of weeks, everything would be fine. But sadly June 9 was one deadline that simply couldn’t be shifted…