So there it is. England is through to the final! My Italian friend has her wish - Italy versus England in the final. The tension in her house - her husband is English - will surely be palpable. As last night’s match went into extra time and it reached a point where England were winning 2-1, I found myself drawn into the tension. I wasn’t even really watching it. The television was on, Phil was watching but also working on the laptop at the same time. I was reading and occasionally lifting my eyes to the set just to see if anything had changed. The commentators were very excited, trying hard not to celebrate prematurely and maybe put a hex on the whole proceedings. And so I found myself drawn in, willing “our boys” not to make a mistake!
The faces of the spectators are always something to behold - hope, delight, despair, deep sorrow following one another. All the emotions are there! And now we have to wait until Sunday to see what happens. We are all on tenterhooks!
I think it was the 2010 world cup semifinal when we watched Spain play Holland in a flat we rented in Vigo. Each time Spain came near to scoring the whole block of flats erupted and then subsided into a sort of collective moan. When Iniesta ( I think that’s who it was) scored the winning goal the block seemed to shake with the force of the cheers. Grown men rushed outside in their Spanish football shirts, ran several times round the gardens and then leapt fully clothed into the swimming pool. Such is the madness that football induces in people!
A friend of mine keeps reminding us all on Facebook that there is an endurance sport going on at the same time - the Tour de France. Here’s yesterday’s post:
“Congratulations to Italy, commiserations to Spain and best of luck to England and Denmark for this evening BUT.....
......let us not lose sight of what Mark Cavendish is achieving on the roads of France!🇮🇲”
His post today, however, was a boastful bit of nostalgia:-
“What's the betting that I'm the only one of my FB friends who was actually present in Wembley Stadium on 30 July 1966?”
Our young tennis star Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from Wimbledon after what seemed to be a kind of panic attack affected her breathing. John McEnroe, who used to deal with the tension in his youth by losing his temper with all and sundry, suggested it was all too much for her and that she might actually become a better player for facing the problem now. He was then slammed on social media for criticising her. Dr Alex George, an A&E doctor, tweeted: “I didn’t realise John McEnroe was medically qualified or that he has X-ray vision!”
There you go! But if I were an up and coming young tennis player I would be quite flattered to be noticed by McEnroe.
Marcus Rashford has sent her messages of comfort and support. Perhaps he is more of a hero to her than McEnoe. I love the way that young man has become a sort of ambassador / counsellor for all things sports-related. Here’s a link to an article about him. Long may this continue.
Now for something which has nothing to do with sport, although records do come into it. Here’s an article about Italian farmers growing the world’s biggest ever cherry.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/italian-farmers-grow-worlds-biggest-ever-cherry
Personally I’d be more concerned that it should taste good. The same applies to strawberries.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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