There are very few dates from the early part of my life for which I can write a dated Ogblog piece.
But family folklore, even from a virtually-sports-free household like my parents’ home, kept the memory of this day alive for me.
My parents had been invited to a “watch the final party” in the street – Woodfield Avenue in Streatham. I suspect it was at the house with the biggest TV and my guess is that would have been the Benjamins at No 36 or the Levinsons at No 42; probably the former.
Goodness only knows what the other parents did with their children, but the party was to be an adults only affair and mum wanted our cleaner, Mrs Nugent, aka Nunu, to babysit for me.
Strangely, Nunu and her family also wanted to watch the final, but they were willing (possibly even keen) to have a toddler – me – with them. So basically I was bundled off to Nunu’s house. I think it was in Tooting.
For reasons that I am unable to fathom, it seems that my hosts, the Nugent family, were not interested in making a fuss of me to their usual level. I tolerated this for a while, but towards the end of the second half of the match I started to seek more Nugent attention than was forthcoming.
Mr Nugent, perhaps unwisely with the benefit of hindsight, told me that the match would be over any minute and that we would soon indulge in activity more to my taste. At that point everyone was in a good mood. England were leading 2-1.
They thought it was all over…
…but unfortunately for me and for the Nugent family, an inconsiderate West German (named Wolfgang Webber, I now learn) scored a 90th minute goal, levelling the match.
So when someone from the Nugent family broke it to me that the match was not in fact over as scheduled but that there was to be a further 30 minutes of play, to which they wanted to devote their almost undivided attention…
…I am told this did not go down too well with me.
And quite right too. Why can’t these idiots conclude their football matches on time as promised? Daft sport.
Anyway, the rest is history. An hour or so later all was smiles, celebrations and cup presentations.
I never really did reconcile myself with soccer football after that.
But the strange thing is, my preferred sports, cricket and tennis, tend to have matches that last much longer than soccer matches, with score-related, i.e. temporally-indeterminate breaks and endings.
Go figure.
