When plotted on a number line, the point at -2 3/4 would be located between which two consecutive integers?I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.
In May '68, just after my eleventh birthday, my father asked me if I'd like to go with him to the FA Cup Final between West Brom and Everton; a colleague had offered him a couple of tickets. I told him that I wasn't interested in football, not even in the Cup Final. That was true, as far as I was aware, but I watched the whole match on TV anyway. A few weeks later I watched the Man United Benfica game, enthralled, with my mum. At the end of August I got up early to hear how United had got on in the final of the World Club Championship. I loved Bobby Charlton and George Best. I knew nothing about Denis Law, the third of the Holy Trinity, who had missed the match through injury. The passion had taken me completely by surprise; it lasted three weeks, until my dad took me to Highbury for the first time.