The World Cup- Original Writing
I could tell he was aiming bottom left. I just knew by the way he was
standing nervously, waiting for the whistle. Putting the shiny white
ball on the perfectly marked spot, stepping slowly back, lining up the
crucial shot. Everyone silent. Ten other players hoping their
schoolboy dreams would come true. Seventy six thousand fans from
around the world packed into the Olympiastadion Berlin waiting
anxiously for one single kick. Tens of millions watching carefully
from houses, pubs and streets and then there was us, ten rows up,
right behind the goal with a perfect view of the fear in the taker’s
eyes, ready to jump up in joy or drop in despair and after coming all
this way we needed something special. All that long, hard labour, all
of those brainless, dangerous risks and the bits of luck we had along
the way, but to get so close to our dream only to be crushed and by
the worst possible team, but……….. wait, I better tell you how we got
here first.
My name is Jonathan Francis, also know as John, Jono, Frankie, Francy,
Franny, King Kong – don’t ask, but most people call me Johnny. I’ve
always had this dream, since I was little enough to kick a ball, to go
to a World Cup Final and see England win against the Germans in the
final – for obvious reasons, but I always knew that it wasn’t going to
be very likely with it always being far away in America or Korea or
somewhere that I can only go in dreams. The only chance I had of
seeing a World Cup that doesn’t involve seeing it on a puny 10” fuzzy
TV screen or in an overcrowded pub with nowhere to move and inhaling
so much cigarette smoke I had may as well have taken smoking up myself
but the really big thing you miss out on, the reason so many people go
to football matches, why some people pay so much for a single ticket,