Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

The day after

The soundtrack for today ought to be 3Canal's "Good News".

A whole nation (actually thinking of itself as a nation) bleary-eyed but blissed-out.

The newspapers are full of coverage of the match & the subsequent celebrations, & many photos of jubilant red-clad crowds. I particularly enjoyed Peter Balroop's report in the Guardian (not a permanent link) on events inside the Red House, where the House of Representatives was adjourned so MPs could watch the final half-hour of the match in the tea-room:

PM Patrick Manning sat at his table next to Port-of-Spain South MP Eric Williams, silent as a lamb. So too, at a table behind them in the darkened tearoom, was Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday, eyes glued to the screen.

A polite Laventille East/Morvant MP Fitzgerald Hinds strolled in with a "Good afternoon, gentlemen."

Not having him to study, a pugnacious Clerk of the House, Jacqui Sampson-Jacent, opined that we could live with the one-goal lead.

Wild applause as Latapy takes to the field to replace a tiring Kenwynne Jones.

Manning advises our goalie Kelvin Jack as he collects the ball, having thwarted Bahrain's goal-scoring intentions: "Slow it down..."

Arouca South MP Camille Robinson-Regis has been calm so far, but the tension is getting to her.

"We can't afford to relax now," she declares.

She flies to her feet, just like several other nervous MPs and a chorus of "Ohs!" goes up as a desperate attempt on the T&T goal by Bahrain flies out of touch, off the crossbar....

Panday breaks his silence to say that as he watches the game he realises that it would be ideal for the Speaker to control Parliament by awarding red cards.

"We can see how the system works," he adds, an idea he was to elaborate on later.

And in the Express, Mark Bassant reports on the atmosphere inside his newsroom. The Express editorial tries to take a broad view of the victory:

If a country, as it must be, is judged by its best expression of itself then yesterday's epic win will have served notice that Trinidad and Tobago is far more than the sum of its seemingly disparate parts, the team coming together at just the right moment to rally the constituent groups of this multicultural if still fledgling democracy.

Georgia was out interviewing yesterday, & she's currently editing a CFR episode on the victory celebrations. Taran describes what was going on last night in San Fernando, i.e. "below the mango belt", & links to reactions from other bloggers. Over in Barbados, Titilayo is thrilled, even though, she says, she doesn't even like football. She links to Tuluum's account of the celebrations in Woodbrook & St. James, complete with many photos.

Gary Hector's prayers really worked....