WE ARE NIPPON: The World Cup in Japan, by Simon Moran. S.U. Press, 2002, 190 pp., 1,500 yen (paper)

As anyone who was here will undoubtedly recall, things got a little raucous in Japan and South Korea last summer. But hosting a World Cup will do that to a nation or, as in this case, two nations.

The 2002 World Cup was unique in many ways, not least that it was being held in Asia for the first time and being jointly hosted for the first time. It was also -- after seven tournaments where he found himself in the wrong part of the planet -- Simon Moran's first time at the sharp end of a World Cup.

Moran was one of the genuinely fortunate few to be granted a press pass for 14 of the games that took place in Japan, including the Brazil-Germany final in Yokohama. As he himself points out, there were people who would have sold their first-born children for those passes . . .