Duncan Barkes

Then I made a pot of tea and we sat at the kitchen table and talked about...

You know, deserbian things.

It was intimate and engaging and exciting.

And what about that game of football?

Right there.

Middlesbrough 0, Pompey 1.

I mean, wouldn't you go to your grave?

If you had to say, what would you like your last game to be?

I think quite a few of us would say, that'll do it.

And here's the reason.

We've had very... I'm just going to open another...

Only my third Peroni, all right, through the game.

But I'm going to open it and take it outside because I like the fresh air after a game of football.

Simple as that.

So these people who don't know football and don't get football, you can't explain it to them, what it gives you.

It's almost as though they're anaesthetised.

And we're not.

If anything, our sensory perceptions have been heightened through life by what football nurtures in us.

Our love for our loved ones, our friendship with our friends, our solidarity where appropriate with our colleagues, our work ethic, our honesty, our decency.

It's all interrelated.