I remember reading (and thoroughly enjoying) "Fever Pitch" by Nick Hornby, (whom I subsequently met at a literary festival, where he graciously took questions from everyone such as football obsessed ten year olds - "will Arsenal win the title this year, do you think?" - ten year old boys are not the usual audience at an afternoon talk during a serious literary festival, and many of them seemed to have been accompanied by their mothers, - to thoughtful questions from some of the women in the audience (including the mothers of the ten year olds) "so, do you think that your obsession with football was developed as a compensation for some of the other lacks in your childhood?") - and I would have enjoyed it even if it has been written about the agony of supporting a team other than Arsenal, for he describes the exquisite agony of the life of the football supporter, a sort of variant on the "pleasure as pain" principle.
Anyway, Nick Hornby, and Fever Pitch - and what he wrote - have all been crossing my mind this afternoon:
Arsenal are currently leading ten man (there was a well deserved red card) and almost already relegated Ipswich by three goals to nil, and, inexplicably, I am still nervous.
Yes, this is neither logical nor rational, yet, that twitchy tension - until the final whistle is blown - still persists.
