Saturday, 31 October 2015

The Big Game

When two Goliaths of world sport meet, as they did today, everyone sits up and takes notice.

Thankfully the match lived up to the hype and both sides produced a scintillating and pulsating game. It more than made up for the 4:30am alarm call. Actually, that wasn't too bad as I had foolishly entered us into the Auckland Half Marathon and hadn't really put too much thought into what a 6:50am start meant. 

What it meant was that we had to wake up at 4:30am in order to dress, eat and travel across town and the harbour in time to drop the kit bag before heading to the start line. Idiot. I can't remember the last time I had to get up so early by choice.

But the silver lining was that I got to see the score unfold, for the early part of the big game at least, It would've been awful to miss the start and the early exchanges, even though I was only looking at numbers on a screen.

The timing was terrible. My mind wasn't on the race or the task ahead. Even the shock of the starting gun going wasn't enough to pull me from my deep thoughts. I was back in Blighty. Or to be more precise, in the capital where events were unfolding literally half a world away . Who was going to emerge as victors? Would early domination fade? The race was a distant consideration. As the kilometres ticked by, rather than my usual pacing calcs, I was wondering about scores, possession and ultimately victory.

Anyway to cut a long (21km) story short, the result went the way of the bookies. Well it had to, and I guess you already knew that. Yes, for once the result went to form and the Giants of the game came out on top. World order, for once, was upheld. 

Charlton didn't really stand a chance. Not against the mighty Boro. Even the three goal victory away from home hid the true nature of the game. A closer examination of the stats .....sorry? What's that? What rugby final? Of course I'm talking about football.

Seriously some people have a one track mind.......


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