Читать книгу Here We Go Gathering Cups In May - Nicky Allt - Страница 8

Friday morning, 25th May, 2007 wasn’t great. I’d jetted back from Athens the night before so was still feeling a bit fuzzy and pissed off … though not about the result. I woke up despising the suits that run football after just being treated like the shit on a UEFA official’s shoe.

I tried to blank things out – took the kids to school, stuck the kettle on, warmed up me laptop ready for a day’s graft – but me head just wasn’t right. Then a text message came through from me brother: ‘Five out of seven isn’t bad, kid. Happy Rome anniversary, 30 years today.’ From that moment me morning was wiped out. I sat on the couch supping me tea trying to remember what it was like to be eighteen and wondering where the fuck thirty years had gone. Half an hour later me laptop was switched off and I was climbing up a loft ladder heading for me footy box.

You know the type of box I’m on about: ticket stubs, scarves, stuff like that. I sat under the loft light and looked inside it. After a few minutes I was gone, totally gone … you know the score.

I rummaged past all sorts – St Etienne scarf, Brugge flag, a Real Madrid hat – then I saw it.

It was in a clear plastic wallet clipped to the inside page of Liverpool’s first European Cup final programme; two cockerels fighting … beside them the words:

Coppa finale Dei Campioni. Curva Nord.

Above them:

Roma, 25 Maggio, 1977. Stadio Olimpico.

To this day it remains the best match ticket I’ve ever seen.

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