Gooooooaaaal !!

This month in Trivandrum we will have an epidemic of not just the plain vanilla viral fever. Trivandrum, Kerala and indeed most of the world will be in the grip of football fever in the weeks ahead. Expect to see many sleep depraved, red eyed souls in office during the next few weeks.

This year the pundits’ favourite seems to be Spain. Of course the usual biggies like Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany and England are expected to do well. But with massive attrition in the form of injuries, expect to see many exciting upsets.

The world cup that I remember most fondly is the 1986 edition. One of the greatest players ever, Diego Maradona was at his peak and 1986 was the year and the world cup the stage for his crowning glory. To add to the mix, we were sports crazy teenagers then and the event happened during the summer vacation

Anyone who watched the Argentina vs England quarterfinal match can never forget his display. We saw the best and the worst of the great man in that match. If we had the famous ‘Hand of God’ in that match, we also saw the ‘Goal of the century’ in which he dribbled past the entire English defence (6 players including the goal keeper) and scored!

I can never forget that summer – we (2 of my cousins and myself) followed the matches on Doordarshan, staying awake till late night / waking up in the early hours. We were so crazy that we used to make small flags of our favourite countries using paper, colours and ‘eerkilla’ (stalk of the coconut tree leaf).

And yes, we used to raid our grandmother’s store room for goodies to keep us awake and energised through the night! One night we went one step too far. Grandma had prepared quite a few extra kozhukkatas at night – the idea being that it would suffice to feed the entire family for breakfast the following morning. She had also probably noticed the reduction in her stock of goodies which she used to ration during tea time. During half time, when we conducted the usual raid, we found the store room locked :( . We searched the kitchen and found the kozhukkatas. By the time the second half started, all that was left of it was just one kozhukkata. The next morning there was hell to pay. Of course grandparents being grandparents, we were let off the hook with just a scolding and the night raids continued till the world cup final!