A funny thing happened at the football last Saturday, and not in a good way. My team, West Brom, were outplaying Derby County but, importantly, without managing to score a goal. Ordinarily, as the second half went on, I would have given in to pessimism, assuming that for all our dominance we’d not score, though Derby somehow would, and I’d go home miserable. But on this occasion, I really thought the match would be ours. Until this thing happened.
Play suddenly stopped, for reasons that were at first unclear. A few of the players were looking at something lying on the pitch. Gingerly, squeamishly, they edged closer to whatever it was. Bizarre. As opera glasses aren’t available on the backs of seats at football grounds, we couldn’t identify the object. Eventually a member of the ground staff appeared, wearing rubber gloves. He strode out to the middle of the pitch, picked the object up, and returned whence he came carrying half a pigeon – dead, obviously.
