I have not written a blog post in a while for various reasons, and in the time I've been away from writing a lot in my life has changed. Amongst many things I have become a university student, met many new and wonderful people, and decided I want to be a journalist/ some form of writer in my later career.
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| Aguero's goal which broke my footballing heart |
One other thing that has changed is that football is not as huge a part of my life as it used to be. I put this down to one mere factor, one second of my life. 93:20, 13/05/2012. This moment will be recognisable to many as the second where Sergio Aguero's final shot of a brilliant first season in the Premier League, hit the back of the Queen's Park Rangers net and gave Manchester City the title. I don't need to explain why that one goal was the difference, we all know the story, and as a Manchester United fan everything about that goal was heartbreaking. It was not just losing the title in the dying seconds, going into those day's games we did not expect City to fail to win, we had already accepted that we had blown it. There was almost redemption for the bizarre Wigan defeat and extraordinary Everton draw, but when we looked back, it was clear that we did not deserve the title, City showed the grit and determination needed and were worthy winners. There was more to it than that, mainly that our bitter rivals (and I'm using the word "bitter" in more ways than one there), had done it. They had come from Division Two obscurity 13 years earlier to this, and us Utd fans never envisaged it happening. Everything about that Aguero goal was painful, and for me it felt like being shoved into a cardboard box, being sealed up and unable to escape. I was trapped by the deafening combination of the now legendary sound of Martin Tyler commentating "Balotelli, AGUEROOOOOOOOO", and the sound of celebration from the City fans. It was a noise like no other football celebration I'd ever heard, it seemed to be the release of every ounce of pain from the lives of each individual person in the stadium, whether personal or football related, and it was converted into that one, united scream of joy.
It was this noise which broke my footballing heart. Now do not get me wrong, I am by no means a sore loser, in fact compared to most of my fellow Utd fans I was very noble in defeat and took it well, trying to be happy for my City fan friends. The reason that this moment has led me to not care quite as much for football as I used to, particularly in moments of Utd defeat, is that there will never ever be any moment in football more painful than that Aguero goal. It was like the worst possible break up imaginable- sudden, noisy, and simply heart-wrenching. In addition, no other break-up would ever be more painful than that one, or certainly in no imaginable way. Similarly, in footballing terms, Aguero's goal was the most heartbreaking imaginable thing to happen to a Utd fan, and no other future footballing moment will ever compare. This is why my love for football has dwindled slightly. I can simply not be as disappointed or upset by anything that happens, knowing what happened in that moment. 93:20, 13/05/2012.
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