Did God Exist in 1986?

I’d had a successful year in Sheffield after the last World Cup – even taking in an FA Cup replay in nearby Leeds where Graham Rix turned the game for Arsenal after Terry Connor had given the February faithful new hope. Leeds United lost the second replay and were a middling Division 2 force during this period. Though I never failed to monitor every match, they were barely ever on television and my chance to see games was to be restricted by a move back south.

On finishing my course I got a job at Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency, in London. Having lived away from home for four of the previous five years, it was an easy transition to make living-wise. Surprisingly, work also fitted into my life quite well without the overwhelming need to be studying all the time. I was able to spend my evenings visiting many of London’s cinemas without any feelings of guilt.

Eventually I settled down in a flat in Colliers Wood, South London with Huw, a Government psychologist who had been a fellow student in Sheffield. We embarked on eighteen months of bachelor living in ‘Men Behaving Badly’ style which was only really brought to an end by the death of Elizabeth.

She had met and married an old friend from Aberystwyth called Vaughan and was living quite happily down the road in Twickenham enjoying her first teaching job. She then started experiencing extreme tiredness and fainting spells and was diagnosed as having Hodgkin’s Disease. We did meet up in Soho Square a couple of times for coffee and a chat where she joked about my suit and I worried about her skeletal appearance.

She was just twenty four when she died and it was to be two and a half years before I began to deal with it, my conversion to Catholicism only lending me brief respite from the darkness.

I went to Ireland for a driving holiday with my friend Mark and we watched Michel Platini win the European Championship for France on a television set in the middle of the Roscommon countryside. He ‘phoned his girlfriend every evening of the trip while I tried to convince myself that I was quite content and that the world was my oyster, even though I felt more like a crab – only ever able to move sideways, never forward.

Thankfully football gave me the chance to escape from myself. As the 1986 World Cup approached, Huw and I were fairly confident about England’s chances, especially with Gary Lineker up front. Huw had reasoned that Gary would become the English face of the tournament because his only significant competition came from Peter Beardsley.

Bryan Robson was quickly injured of course and Ray Wilkins was sent off – playing his last ever game for England – for being, well, ‘Butch.’ Portugal were England’s nemesis again in the opening round but at least the 1973 bogey was put firmly to bed by England beating Poland to qualify for the last 16. They then beat Paraguay by the same 3.0 scoreline before encountering the flawed genius of Maradona’s Argentina..

We watched, amused as Batista of Uruguay was sent off after less than a minute for a foul on Gordon Strachan – still a World Cup record – but , naturally, Scotland failed to progress beyond the first round. Most thoughts, though, were on the late Jock Stein, whose Scotland team it really was and whose great Celtic team had beaten my beloved Leeds United in the European Cup sixteen years earlier.

That was the same year that Mexico had last hosted a World Cup. Colombia were supposed to have hosted the 1986 tournament but ran out of money so Mexico became the first country to host two World Cups by taking it on again. It was strange to hear places such as Guadalajara and Leon being mentioned on the rented colour television in our modern urban flat. The last time they had been part of my life was followed by my burying my football between haystack goals; after Maradona had spoiled another World Cup I just buried my head in work and beer.

See also:

1982: http://sportales.com/soccer/the-rain-and-spain-in-1982/

1978: http://sportales.com/soccer/i-cried-but-not-for-argentina-in-1978/

1974: http://sportales.com/soccer/by-the-1974-world-cup-i-had-grown-but-we-had-declined/

1970: http://sportales.com/soccer/the-1970-world-cup-the-end-of-a-golden-age/

1966: http://sportales.com/soccer/i-was-six-in-1966-and-thought-the-world-cup-was-just-for-fun/

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