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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Max Rushden

Friends reunited: Football Weekly listeners come for the games and stay for the people

Football Weekly illustration
‘Generally it’s an enthusiastic crowd. Last time in Birmingham listeners wanted Barry Glendenning to burn holes in their T-shirts with a cigarette.’ Illustration: David Lyttleton/The Guardian

I recently found myself sending a polite email to two of the UK’s most prominent outdoor explorer types about drinking their own urine. Or at least pretending to drink it. It’s not something I have experience of, but I guess you never know what the future holds. It is for a thing. No, it really is. Perhaps unsurprisingly I haven’t heard back. I am too embarrassed to follow up.

It’s not the first time I’ve caught myself wondering exactly how the course of life’s events have resulted in something ridiculous in the name of work: sharing a sofa with Mr T, being whipped by Anne Diamond, sword fighting with Frank Leboeuf, watching a knight of the realm deface pictures of footballers in newspapers with phallic images. What have you just done to Jan Vertonghen? What odd situations to end up in if we don’t truly have free will. And if we do, then what meaningful contribution to existence is this?

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