I've not posted for a while; sorry. Two weeks ago, I was puking everything my digestive system had to offer. Last week, I was on a flight to Spain. Yesterday, I was sitting in someone else's front room making some difficult admissions. Enough about me, though.
Except, this is my personal blog, so I am going to talk about me. It's a shame that I missed out on two excellent blogging opportunities, because I had some great ideas. Now, there's only one thing I want to talk about.
It's tonight.
Ninety minutes of blue and red swirling on a background of green that could mark the end of an era or the dawning of a new age. The Champions League final.
Anyone who has ever engaged me on the topic of football will know that it is something I can converse upon with some fervour. I think it's important as a sport, an art form and in shaping social history. The disbelievers will claim that it's all to do with money, and that the endless parade of competitions only serves to dull the joy of winning.
They are wrong, they are blind, they are many things besides.
This night, twenty five thousand English football fans will descend on Munich. Most will not have tickets. I know, because two years ago, I went to Madrid for the final there. There was no English team in the final, but in case there was, me and a friend booked ahead. I made sure I was a Chelsea member so that, if my team made it, I'd have a chance of getting tickets.
That year, the finalists were Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. From the chatter in the streets, you could have been forgiven for thinking you had ended up in Italy, not Spain. In fact, so confused was I that, although I speak Spanish far better, I began speaking Italian to a shopkeeper.
The two sets of fans were very different. The Germans sat outside cafes talking amongst themselves in groups of three or four. The Italians marched up and down the streets, singing loud and offensive songs, and trying to goad the Germans into some kind of response.
Waiting for my friend outside a cafe, which we had no chance of eating at as the tables were overrun with hungry Germans, I was passed by a march of Italian Ultras, who asked me who I would be supporting. Being sensible, and a coward, I said Inter.
I lied. I was supporting Bayern- something I will not be doing tonight.
By mid-afternoon, the streets around the Bernabeu were heaving. The bars lining the streets were rammed. We met people from the Netherlands and Cameroon, and drank beer on the grass verges. In the streets, touts offered tickets for two thousand euros each. People paid.
Football is stirring. I don't doubt, if I'd had access to two thousand, and Chelsea were in that final, I'd have been tempted. If it wasn't for exams, I'd probably have made the pilgrimage to Munich tonight with my fellow brothers of the faith.
It's mental, how football does these things. It's like a drug, or some hypnotic dance, which sweeps you up in its rhythms and carries you off. You know nothing except to keep moving, to keep following, to twist and turn with the music, to laugh and cry as the melody dictates.
Will tonight be played in a major or minor key? Who knows. It is liable to be an exciting match, with both teams having sacrificed their defences to make it this far- which just shows how much they want it. Bayern were denied two years ago, Chelsea four.
For Chelsea, there is a sense of entitlement. After a game in which they had dominated, to lose out in some soggy penalty shoot-out to a smug Portuguese gypsy... it wasn't fair. I don't know about Bayern, but on that night in Madrid, there was only one deserving team, and they were Italian.
I'm not going to speculate. I won't let my heart think it's possible. Chelsea are depleted far worse than the Germans, both by suspension and injury, and Bayern are playing on their home turf. Yet, already I feel it, that tingle at the base of my spine, slowly travelling up towards my brain and threatening to drive me mad: Hope.
The Pensioners might be starting to live up to their nickname, but I think this Chelsea team have one last trophy in them. Let it be tonight.
