The guy who came in from the cold
Knowing how much you care for us and pray for our well-being as we travel the world getting paid to watch football matches, we didn’t want to make too much of a fuss or appear too self-centred by banging on about our worries in the run-up to the game. That’s why we remained scrupulously objective in our reporting on the mini-row over whether the roof in the Friends Arena should remain open or closed. Admittedly, you might have seen the odd, arguably loaded phrase, such as “health-threatening” or even “death-dealing” creeping into the copy here and there but, by and large, we gave you just the facts, ma’am.
The truth, however, was that deep down we were, I think it’s safe to say, chilled by the possibility of having to sit, never mind try to type, for the guts of two hours in temperatures expected to be somewhere south of minus 10 degrees. As you all well know, journalists are not given to overstating things but, frankly, there were some of us who, in contemplating this brutal tableau with an appropriately suitable shudder, had no trouble envisioning ourselves as the intrepid adventurers in Bob Dylan’s Isis, one of whom comes to a grisly end. Altogether now: “Well the wind it was howling and snow was outrageous/ we chopped through the night and the dawn/ when he died I was hoping that it wasn’t contagious/ but I’d made up my mind that I had to go on.”
