Well, it was nice while it lasted!
After briefly threatening to knock the beleaguered Chelsea out of the FA Cup by leading 1-0 for the first half hour at Roots Hall last night, my local team Southend United finished the game in a crushing 4-1 defeat.
Now, everything I know about football could be written on the top half of a postage stamp. I've never been to a live game, and I don't intend to start now (I mean, that'd mean learning the rules, wouldn't it?) but the excitement generated by the tantalising prospect of a win against a top team like Chelsea - televised from our home ground on peak time ITV, by the way - was enough to make me actually feel excited about football, just for one evening. It's the first complete match I've watched from end to end since the "Gazza's Tears" 1990 World Cup semifinal, and only the second complete match I've ever watched in my life.
And I loved every minute of it.
I just wonder whether I can hold out another nineteen years until my next game?
My euphoria was overshadowed by a very sad event – the passing of actor Patrick McGoohan. I'm not going to write an obituary – I'll leave that to proper journalists – but I couldn't leave the event unmarked.
McGoohan's chief legacy will always be, of course, the 1967 television serial The Prisoner, which completely turned my life upside-down when I watched it twenty years ago. A fascinating and intelligent drama in its own right, it taught me that it's OK to be individual rather than led by the masses, and to hold onto that individuality, lest I allow my tiny voice to be suppressed by the shouting masses.
Forty years after it was made, the programme's message is truer today than ever. It should be compulsory viewing in every school.
RIP Patrick McGoohan, 1928-2009
Further reading:
More about The Prisoner's legacy from offthetelly.co.uk
