Across the ground, a pause as still as the years that follow. Matchday chat falls to the pit where lost apple pips lie – feel them stretch into this emptiness, burst into boughs, touch all sides of this amphitheatre struck dumb. A crowded silence can seem so deathless. Watch the whistle rise, embrace the explosion.

We just wanted to play football. While the rest of the boys in our year were out with girls (or at least claiming to be), we were on the hunt for makeshift goal posts. The bins round the back of the school. Two saplings planted up in the park. The garage doors at the top […]

Gareth Bale, Wales vs. Slovakia, Euro 2016 Group B, Bordeaux, France, 11th June 2016 He’s hit free kicks before. Lifted them over memories of spurned chances, missed penalties. Bent them round the shadows of an unjust sporting past: an East German and his missing flag, a toothless Scot’s veiled fist. Some nestled in side-netting, while […]

Swansea City vs. Wrexham, FAW Premier Cup Final, 11th May 2005 On your deathbed we stripped you – ripped out red plastic seats and advertisement boards like thieves stealing gold from fresh bodies. The Vetch clock, not yet stopped but definitely slowing, tick-tocked our final minutes away as Roger Evans, muffled by soot, whispered down […]