The late Bill Shankley the former manager of Liverpool F.C. once said and I quote"some say football's a matter of life or death.....I say it's more important than that"!!
The older I've gotten the less I've come to believe that my team losing whatever game they happen to be playing is quote "the end of the world",that said there are some victories that are just too sweet to ignore!
Anyone who knows me knows "I bleed blue" for my beloved Tottenham Hotspurs or Spurs as refer to them more often than not, and anyone who's set foot inside my modest appartment will testify that if someones put a Spurs logo { a Cockerel atop a football} on it I own it,clock,towel,fridge magnet,razor you name it I own it and then there's the nearly two dozen replica Spurs shirts I've been collecting since the early 80's.
So it should come as no surprize that when Spurs play things tend to grind to a halt,I work my weekends around our Premier League games factoring in the five hour time difference,3pm kick offs at 10am work well,12.45pm kick offs at 7.45am can be a little tricky {but I count my lucky stars I'm not on the west coast and looking at a 4.45am kick off!!!!} and 5.30pm kick offs at 12.30pm can be a blessing or a curse depending......and then come the mid week games!!!!
An 8pm kick off at 3pm here means I can be home in time for the second half which works great,however as was the case yesterday a trip to Lyon in France for a Europa League fixture meant a 6pm kick off there and a 1pm kick off here,"bunking off" from work early seems a tad irrisponsible these day{it has been done in the past though!!} so w/out access to a tv I was forced to follow the game on line......
Any soccer fan my age and older will remember that in the days b4 the internet we had our ears pressed up against a radio to follow the Radio 2 commentary or 5 Live,there's nothing harder than not actually being able to watch the action and god forbid your team is losing as you sit there praying to hear those magic words"it's a goal"!!!!
Returning from my lunch hour at 2.15pm I hastly put the pc on BBC Sports and followed the second half updates.....crap we trailed Lyon by a goal and as time ticked down we were in danger of going out of the Europa League,rather than sit and shout obsenities at the pc screen I multitasked,listened to music on Spotify,checked stuff on another screen and periodocally came back to BBC Sports to check the updates.......
Whoever was posting them was not a Spurs fan,w/ 15 mins to go he/she asks "how serious are Spurs about staying in this tournament?" w/ 10 mins to go "at this stage Newcastle are moving on,Spurs are going out" w/ 5 mins to go"it's looking bleak for the men from White Hart Lane"..........
I was resigned to our fate an exit from the Europa League,one last check of the website b4 grabbing my Spurs fleece jacket and heading home.........................................................................................................
90 min.GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MOUSSA DEMBELE, SPURS GO THROUGH!!!!!
A rousing cheer of "fuckin' get in there!!!" from yours truly as I danced a jig in my office!!! and my beloved Spurs move onto the round of 16 and a date w/ Inter Milan in two weeks time.
And what does any of this have to do w/ running you may ask? well kids it's ten times easier to get into my running clothes and face sub zero temps and a nasty wind chill when your team has won than if they've lost...
C'MON YOU SPURS!!!!! another 5 miler around Clark Park but this one saw a song in my heart and a smile on my face inspite of the cold.
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