• A religious conversion
    I won’t mention the team. The reason? I’d like most readers to stick with this beyond the first lines. It isn’t which club, or even football, but about a father and daughter forming an unexpected, unbreakable bond, in difficult, teenage times. My son was all set for the match but gave up the ticket after […]
  • In the Pink
    Impatient men and boys waited outside newsagents at six o’clock, for vans to deliver their bundles. News or Standard? Rival papers competed to produce Saturday night sports papers, all the football scores for pools punters seeking that jackpot. Out in the provinces the same results were printed on green or pink paper. When older I […]
  • Back At The Match (after Philip Larkin)
    The beckoning floodlights still work their magic, early October’s comforting chill, scarf snug round the neck. Blood pulses through arteries, moving as it should. Heart lifts with every step towards the stadium. An old pal texts me from another game up north. The name rings a bell. He’s at a club where my job was […]
  • Watching England with Carol Ann Duffy
    It seems like a dream now: the 1-4 scoreline; Lampard’s goal that never was; watching the game with Carol Ann Duffy. She turned up amid the half-time gloom in the pub, asked if it was ok to sit near the TV. I made some crack about political-historical contexts and Nazi fugitives, and why Uruguayan officials […]
  • The striker’s fear of the penalty
    ‘The goalkeeper’s fear of the penalty’ – but shouldn’t a striker fear it so much more? The keeper isn’t expected to save; the forward is obliged to score. A penalty can help break the duck, if you’re blazing chances over the bar that seem more difficult to miss, going through a spell of bad luck. […]