An English friend was living in Tokyo in 2002 when the World Cup caravan rumbled over the horizon and into view.

And if there was ever a story to illustrate just how this quadrennial celebration of the world game seeped into just about every nook and cranny of civilisation, and inveigled its way into the drawing rooms of even the politest society, it came with this bloke's experience in Japan, during this very same week eight years ago.

As the World Cup countdown entered the final month, our hero, like every other person with a passing interest in football - which at that time included vast tracts of the population in the two host nations, Japan and South Korea - began to get caught up in the hoopla.

In the weeks leading up to the opening game, he began to plan with a few mates what they'd be doing on the night of the opening game, France v Senegal, on May 31 in Seoul.

What he didn't realize though was his wife, who was not such a big football fan, had accepted an invitation to the big annual dinner dance at the International School in Tokyo - the institution at which their children were enrolled.

This came as something of a shock to our hero. In fact, ‘crestfallen' doesn't do justice to his feelings of deep unhappiness. After he finished wailing at his wife - and then begging for forgiveness and asking, pretty please, if there wasn't some way a compromise could be reached - our man then began muttering loudly about the stupidity of the International School's scheduling. Didn't these halfwits know there was a World Cup on, and it was being staged in their country?

And on Friday May 31, when all his mates were whooping it up at a sake bar (with widescreen TV) in downtown Tokyo, our adventurer was being dragged along to the dinner dance. And never a more miserable sight was seen on the streets of the great city.

As he and his wife walked up the steps of the swank city hotel to the ballroom, our protagonist's spirits brightened a little when he saw the organizers had gone to the trouble of installing a big screen on the wall behind the main table. Mmmm, he thought, maybe they'll show a bit of the opening game after all.

He then discovered each of the 32 tables at the dinner was adorned by the flag of one of the 32 nations competing, and the guests were to represent their nation for the night. Our man found himself an honorary Nigerian for five hours.

Then the headmaster of the International School - an Englishman who was, in the great tradition of many of his compatriots, deeply eccentric - stood up and gave a welcoming speech, in which apologized for the timing of the dinner. He said the big screen behind him would later be cranked up for anyone who cared to watch the French and Senegalese kick off the tournament.

You beauty, thought our man, things are starting to look up. Maybe these boffins aren't totally disconnected from the real world, after all.

A short while later, he noticed a smallish soccer goal being erected in one corner of the room and space being cleared around the goal. And with that, a set of double doors swung open and, making a grand entrance, the headmaster strode in, kitted out in full goalkeeper's kit, including goalie's gloves.

He moved to the microphone and explained that, as a warm-up to dinner, they were about to have a football competition. Each table was to nominate one penalty taker and there would be a prize for the spot-kicker who notched up most goals. (The headmaster was, of course, self-appointed guardian of the goal, having told everyone he was a keeper of some repute in his younger days.)

And so well-dressed women kicked off their high heels, and men loosened their cummerbunds, and it was on. The 32 penalty takers - with this lunatic of a headmaster bouncing from one foot to the other in the goalmouth - banged away with their shots so that, soon, soccer balls were bouncing around the ballroom like the inside of a Tattslotto machine, until eventually a winner was decided.

Then everyone sat down to dinner, the evening transformed from another tedious school social into a memorable, if seriously quirky, homage to the world game. Everyone was now in the mood for the tournament, even our hero who'd long forgotten his thwarted sake-bar plans.

And the evening encapsulates the World Cup's ability to connect with almost everyone, everywhere - even the impoverished Ghanaian men watching Angola play Iran in the 2006 tournament, pictured above - in a way that no other sporting event can.