My Villa silence

Day -89 WorldCup2018

"Football is the most important thing, amongst the least important in life." (Arrigo Sacchi)
It's the second time in about a month that I'm using this quote. It hit me again today. I can, but won't, list many, many things, current and ongoing, that I recognize as being more important than Aston Villa making it back to the Premier League, England being at the World Cup when the majority of the teams have gone home and Malta winning a football match. But, it has to be said, it is a lot of fun celebrating the highs and a deep emotion dealing with the lows.

I vowed a few moths ago to not mention Aston Villa's progress until promotion was almost guaranteed. After 8 wins in a row and then a couple more, I thought it was safe to come back to letting loose a little bit. But just like one of my superstitions is to not look at the "as it stands" table until the final whistle has blown, I should not have talked about Villa's progress until I was basking in the relief and knowledge that they would be playing Manchester City and United, Liverpool and Tottenham next season.

Two defeats in a row have now left us, the fans, not looking at catching Cardiff in second place but worrying about making the playoffs. Today I took my superstitions to a new level as Villa toiled against Bolton. It used to be radio on or off depending on whether Villa had previously scored when it was on or off. Today it was check Twitter....no, Bolton scored....don't check...but...maybe....no!....leave it for 5 minutes, come back to it...no!...but that was probably only 30 seconds....ok, empty the dishwasher, then check....clean the kitchen.....no!.....that didn't work. Ok, go out and leave it. No! Nothing. Game over.

So that's it. I have to go back to my pretend ignorance of all things Villa. I will still watch, I will still follow every minute but there will be no mention here, or little mention. From now it's full on World Cup, some Champions League, some politics, some family jokes or experiences. And look out for Villa news in May.

There'll be more Platini and less Grealish, Eder over Hogan and Valderrama before Terry.

So here's a start. To paraphrase Sacchi, "football is the thing that can make some of us happy, as a diversion from the things that we really have to worry about." Not many have made us feel the emotion of football better than Marco Tardelli.