February makes me shiver

THERE is no more powerfully tragic combination than loss of innocence and unfulfilled potential.

JFK’s asassination will still feel even more shocking than Abraham Lincoln’s in the decades to come, despite Lincoln’s unquestionable superiority as a President, not because 1963 was so much more mediatised an era but because JFK seemed to have so much more to give, and because Dallas represented a shattering of American 20th century domestic complacency.

Thus it is that Munich 1958 is perhaps remembered in football in a way that the Torino Superga disaster is not, despite the Italian team’s multi-champion majesty and the passionate centrality of football in Italy.