Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

Not watching the match, Part 12

I'm trying to remember the last time I actually watched an entire football match. I can't remember a thing about the last World Cup, but I followed France 1998 fairly closely. And I have good reason to remember the final in 1994: Germany [correction: Italy] vs. Brazil. I was staying with my family at a beach-house up in Toco, & five minutes before the match started I dropped a glass in the kitchen & a freak shard nicked the corner of my right wrist. A tiny cut, but I'm not good with blood. Then the match started, & no one paid me the slightest attention--I lay on a sofa with cotton wool pressed to my wrist, in a half-faint, while everyone was absorbed by the match.