Some of you who have followed my blogs over the years may know that I spent most of my life as a top Amateur soccer player. I started around ten years old and finally calling it quits after my knees gave out in 2008  at the age of 72 having been an active player for 62 years. I would like to say that I was at my peak at the end but nothing was further from the truth. I peaked out between 25 and 30 as I kept myself in good shape and by then had acquired some decent skills. I was never very fast so there wasn’t too much noticeable difference and at the end, I had switched to playing goalkeeper which  required less running on my part.

I am telling you this because this year is a World Cup year for the sport and I and millions of others around the World have been glued to our television sets for almost the past month. I am in the habit of recording all of the games and then watching them in the evening. I do this mainly so that I can skip the commercials which after the first go round are very repetitive and boring. As they are not advertising anything that I am likely to buy, I consider it a small favor that I can miss this part of the broadcast.

Anyway, the tournament is almost over and is at the semi-final stage one of which has already been played with France beating Belgium. Naturally, being from the old country, I am an English supporter and they are scheduled to play today so I have been desperately trying to avoid all of the news sources that are likely to give away the score so that when I watch the game later this evening, I will not know the outcome.

Well wouldn’t you know it that one of my so called friends has just sent me a text telling me that Croatia has beaten England although he didn’t send the score. It doesn’t matter anyway as my hope of watching the game without knowing the result has just gone out of the window.

With friends like that, who needs enemies…I will still watch the game of course and maybe my ex-friend was wrong but without much hope.

Written 7/11/2018