World Cup Football Party

First off please let me declare that I am certainly not the football fan in our household. Oh no. Definitely not. Over the years husband and I have come to some sort of understanding about sport, which means that I occasionally tolerate it in the lounge and he probably spends more time than he’d ideally like trying to watch some Big Match or another on the smaller telly in the playroom.

So you are probably very sensibly questioning why I’m hosting a football themed party. Well, as husband is a bit of a sport fanatic, (Yes, he did have the football on in the birthing suite while I was in labour with our eldest), I’m confident that the World Cup is going to become a dominant presence in our house over the next few weeks. For the sake of marital harmony I’m going for the “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” approach.

(You can read more about how my sport mad husband has driven me crazy here and about how we’ve found a workable balance here!)

Planning a World Cup Football Party

As my knowledge of the World Cup and football in general is virtually non-existent, I desperately needed to do some research to come up with some workable football party ideas.

I headed over to Pinterest and created a World Cup Football Party board where I started gathering ideas. I’m relatively new to Pinterest, but I find it’s a good source of information. If you fancy hosting your own party, there are plenty more ideas there too.

The more I found out about it, the more I realised I’d like us to enjoy this event as a family, rather than just tolerate it.

Football Party Decorations

I spotted this colourful display of flags in a Clifton pub and developed a nasty case of ‘bunting envy’. As the pub landlord didn’t seem at all keen to take it down and let me have it, I started thinking of ways I could recreate a simpler version for our party.

I found a fabulous website where you can print out masses of flags. England is one of four teams in Group D, so I chose half A4 versions of the other teams in our group, as well as our Brazilian hosts. I gave England a full A4 size and I’m optimistic that this larger flag might give us a better chance of getting through to the next round. (Did you notice how I just said ‘us’? I’m clearly getting into this now).

Of course just as I started printing, both my cyan and yellow printer cartridges failed and I printed out a couple of pages of rather fetching pink Brazilian flags, but fortunately I found an alternative option, (thank you Daddy) and the flags look great.

I wanted to attach our football party decorations to the goal posts, so I decided it would be a good idea to laminate them to give them a bit of weather proofing. And besides laminating is ace fun. I’m all for a bit of child labour, where appropriate, so I (reluctantly) let my 8 year old help with this.

You can’t have a party without balloons can you? Again, out of respect for the host nation I bought Brazilian themed balloons. It’s very handy that my 5 year old is now quite capable of blowing them up virtually unaided . . .

. . and I’m tremendously impressed that my ten year old has recently learnt to tie them up. So handy!

Kids Football Party Games

I’m pretty sure that our boys will display a fleeting interest in actually watching the matches -(maybe more so the ones scheduled for after their bedtimes) – so I’ve been looking for other ways to get them involved in the World Cup. So off I went on a mission to find some kids football party games to fit in with our theme. 

I’m a great fan of saving money by using the resources we already have. We’ve had a boxed up goal post in the garage for years which I keep meaning to sell as our garden’s not that big, but when I suggested putting it up the boys were super keen.

My five year old and I built it. As we’d laminated the flags, it was simple to attach them with sellotape. I tied the balloons on and Voila! A scene fit for the Big Match. We love it!

I’ve also resurrected the children’s table football game, which had sort of disappeared under some paperwork in the playroom. Oops!

Not surprisingly the husband has expressed more of an interest in my World Cup post than normal and he pointed out that he still had his childhood Subbuteo game, so that’s been brought down from the loft and will be entrusted to the children (under supervision) for the first time.

This all sounds a little tiring, so I thought a more restful activity might be called for. OK so my attempts below aren’t great but I’m sure the children will be able to come up with something much better!

World Cup Football Party Food and Drink

Having given all our activities a trial run, we needed some refreshments.

We decorated our glasses with stickers from a world cup activity book . . . .

. . and made ice cream floats for a super easy treat.

“This is awesome Mummy. Can I have another one after this please?”

“Uhm? – No!”

We finished off with barbecued sausages, courtesy of my expert barbecuing husband and topped them off with more stickers from the football activity book. Easy peasy!

And that’s it – we’re ready for the World Cup. Come on England!

World Cup Football Party Ideas and Resources

If you’re inspired to host your own Big Match party, here are some links you might find useful:

You can follow my World Cup Football Party Pinterest Board

Here’s where you can print out flags

Take a look at the ideas in the Big Match Planner  #BigMatchPlanner

And if you have a blues fan in the house, then whatever you do, don’t let them see this post on How to Design a Chelsea FC Bedroom!

PIN FOR LATER

Do you have any of your own party planning tips to add? If so, please do let me know in the comments below.