It was riveting, it was exiting, it was breath-taking at times, it was a battle royal of two supreme forces engaged in the individual mastery of their sport, almost in mortal combat. It was that good.

Not the football, that was shit.

But Wimbledon tennis finals often are wonderful. That was the first 4 hours of my viewing schedule yesterday. And it was totally brilliant. As was Djokovic. Love him (no-one does, no-one could) or hate him, you cannot deny his brilliance. The Italian, Billy Handsome, tried valiantly, but alas it was not his day. Grand Slam finals are only ever Novak Djokovic’s day.

Then I had a ‘rest’. Went for a walk, took a bath, ate dinner and then, one whisky to the good and a bottle of, ironically, Peroni in my hand, I took my seat for the main event. In fact, due to my struggle with the bottle opener, I actually managed to miss the first goal. Holy shit. I have seen it subsequently, about 47 times. And its still an incredible goal. The cross by Trippier, always perfection, and that finish by Luke Shaw, sufficient to make Jose Morinho simply squirm to death due to the realisation of his own un-specialness.

And that was great! And we were winnin’!!! And it was all rosy and bright and the champagne was ready and the parties started… but alas the final whistle failed to blow after 5 minutes. Due to Brexit. And they made us play another 95, then a further 30 after that, just for fun. It almost appeared like ‘we’d done enough’. ‘Relax now’. Ok, Italy’s traditional stance of ‘sitting there impenetrably’ for as long as it takes to score on the break, had to be re-worked into something more aggressively attack-minded. And that’s what they did. After 4 minutes England appeared to be ‘waiting for penalties’. Even though they were winning. The rest, alas and alack, was almost inevitable.

But worst of all is the ‘fans’. Not all of them, obviously. Some are lovely. Others tried to smash their way into Wembley. Not so lovely. And still others are simply the scum of the earth.

The nation bonded over the Euros, no question about it. We joined. We linked. We were a brother-(and sister!)-hood. Or just ‘a hood’ as we have to call it now. In the second match played there was the Christian Eriksen event, which turned one and all into caring, considerate, loving souls, everyone involved at any level, in every country. The feel-good sustained my nation for the following 3 weeks. And then, after 3 missed penalties the divisive rabble took to Twitter to abuse those who missed: terribly, instantly and racially. And I really really just don’t get the connection. These people are vile.

#whitepenaltymissesmatter

Not the happiest of Mondays

A xxxx