Alas and Alex

   Things just won't be the same without him...
  When I first came to live in America, I wondered how I would cope in a country that called the World Cup the "Men's World Soccer Championships". Actually, there have been advantages. Subscribing to the right soccer (sic) channels has made it possible to watch almost all United's games live, which is more than they can do in Britain. That's because soccer (sic) is of course a minority sport in America, played mostly by women and children. (The half-time commercials are all for Western Union money transfers and cheap international phonecalls). The US does have a feisty national team but I'm rather sorry for them. No one much cares. In fact the whole concept of international team sport is rather alien to Americans, who play their ice hockey, baseball and football (sic) mostly among themselves and the Canadians.A shame they are the only country in the world that just cannot grasp the beautiful game. Remember when, in a despairing effort to popularise it,   the World Cup came to America and we joked that they'd want to widen the goalmouths to make for more goals and cut the halves into quarters to make for more commercials. That's not such so crazy - they'd have done it if they could. Last season,  I took hubby to Old Trafford. He enjoyed the match, though he was a little bemused at times. Only two goals and he missed one of them because someone stood up in front of him.
  At least, as I hear today's momentous news, I am among people who understand, even if we're in SW19 and most of them support Chelsea.