LONDON -- Growing up as I did in an Italian household, it was only natural that I fell in love with soccer.

That childlike passion has blossomed into an obsession with the passage of time, so much so that I've become a soccer junkie.

Thanks to the miracle that is digital cable, I park myself on the couch every weekend and watch seven or eight games from around the world on the television.

Whenever I talk to my dad on the phone, we always end up chatting about the latest news and gossip from Serie A, and I spend a small fortune each month on a handful of British soccer magazines.

Needless to say that I'm very much in my element here in England, where soccer -- or football as the Brits call it -- is the king of all sports.

Every bar I pass on the street here inevitably has a game showing on the telly. Football is the topic of conversation amongst passengers on the subway, men on street corners, bellhops at hotels and even little old ladies at the bus stops.

Football is as much a part of English culture as the Queen and the monarchy. It is as much a part of the English identity as hockey is to the cultural and social fabric of Canada.

Maybe even more so.

"People are willing to die for their team," said my London buddy Richard. "Football is so embedded in the national conscience here, that people would do anything for their club. It's pretty scary."

Blasphemous as it may sound, to the English, football is religion.

"It's our gospel," explained Doug, a young waiter at the west London hotel I'm staying at.

"Instead of going to church on Sunday and praying, we go to the stadium and pubs on Saturday and Sunday with our mates and watch football.

"People in England think of themselves as fans of their favourite club before they identify with a particular religion. I grew up in a Christian house, but I'm a Liverpool fan first and foremost. Liverpool is my faith."

Fair enough, but isn't it a bit much to talk about football as a religion?

"After all," I point out, "it is just a game."

"Not to us mate," replied Doug. "It's life or death."

The passion for the game here is something like the fervour Canadians feel about hockey. Just like hockey fans in Montreal or Toronto, football fans have an absolutely ravenous appetite for the game.

The difference being that, for the English, football is a matter of civic pride.

"There's a much stronger allegiance among football fans than sports fans in North America because the identity of so many cities are tied to the local football club," said Richard.

The majority of football clubs in England have been around since the turn of the century, with a handful dating back even further to the 1890s.

It's this kind of longevity, history and tradition that drives the passion for the game.

Explains Richard: "Most fans come from a family that supported a certain club for decades, unlike in the States and Canada where teams fold and move to new markets all the time, so fans know the local football club won't up and move at the drop of a hat."

You get the sense from talking to people that there's an unmistakable proletariat feel to the game. Unlike cricket, golf and tennis with its upper-class undertones, football is the game of the common man.

"I think it all goes back to the fact that in my day, it really was a working-class game," explained Chris, an older gentleman who sells knick-knacks from his stand on a busy London street corner.

"You would work all week in the coal mines, long 12-hour days and then at the end of the week, you would blow your wages on tickets to the game.

"Even though money has changed the game since when I first started watching it, there's still that element of escapism to football. People can sod off to the stadium for two hours, leave their work and family problems behind and just watch a game."

"Football provides great comfort for a lot of us working blokes."

As a working bloke myself, I couldn't have said it any better.