Joy in repetiton

Wolverhampton Wanderers v Watford

11^th August 2007

My brother Trevor and his girlfriend Sarah brought my niece Kasey over last night and we stayed in, chatted and played Risk. After a walk along the canal and through Regents Park this afternoon, we had a pizza at a chain restaurant near Euston and ended up resurrecting last year’s argument about the amount of money Watford earned from TV by being promoted. This time, Trevor claimed my position had been his, which I guess is a form of admission that I was right…

Anyway, afterwards I headed over to the Greenwich Pensioner, a pub in Poplar that I’d rung in the week and whose landlady had agreed to show the match live. I chose the pub for its location close to the O2 Centre (Millennium Dome), where I was heading for my second concert of three in a month. I turned up ten minutes into the game and felt the eyes of the locals on me. The game was goalless and Wolves slowly seemed to be having more of it, with a great chance being put high over by Olofinjana.

Just before halftime though, the Wolves midfielder made amends by lobbing Mart Poom after being put clear through with only our keeper to beat. The second half started with them threatening to increase the lead and narrowly missing twice. Jobi McAnuff had a chance too but fired straight at the keeper. The landlord, who I’d chatted football with, came and sat with me and I told him (a United fan) about Joss’ conversion (“Nah, that’s out of order as it happens”). In the meantime two other locals rehashed an argument they’d obviously run through before (Arsenal a foreign team) and one that I’d used on Trevor when he was being racist about Watford players.

Rod and Air turned up with about 30 mins to go and Rod proved to be a lucky charm again. The two live matches he’s been to have resulted in Watford wins and with three minutes left on the clock Watford won a free kick just outside the box that Jordan Stewart took. He’s got a mean shot on him but the deflection was probably what took this one in for his first Watford goal. Earlier today I’d read that the latest goal scored in the Premiership last season was by Bolton against Watford in the 96th minute. So it was that balance was achieved with the foul on Steve Kabba leading to a penalty at a similar time of the game.

Marlon King strode up to take it and blasted high into the net and I was up on my feet in the pub. One of the older locals smiled at me. I shook the landlord’s hand as I left a few minutes later. Football’s great.

Rod dropped me off at Canary Wharf station where I met Faisel and we caught the tube one stop to North Greenwich. I gave him the Prince ticket I bought on ebay and we went in to see the man, who opened with Purple Rain and played many of his hits but not all of them all the way through. His show is flawless but leaves you wanting more when once he delivered it all.