My plan to kick off life after lockdown

The last time I went to a football game was on Saturday 7 March last year when my 12-year-old son and I went to see QPR play Preston North End. When we got there we were handed a certificate, signed by the manager, congratulating us on having travelled 228 miles. Pretty heroic given QPR’s record on the road is so poor the fans have a song they sing after away games, adapted from ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’: ‘We’re the Rangers, the mighty Rangers, we never win away… a win away, a win away, a win away…’ etc. But on that occasion we won 3-1, in spite of going a man down. The scenes on the train back to Euston were something to behold. When Charlie and I commiserate with each other about not having been to a match for more than a year, we can at least cling on to the fact that the last game we went to was an unlikely QPR victory.

I’ve missed going to the football with Charlie more than anything else in the past 12 months. I thought the greatest privation during lockdown would be the closure of pubs and restaurants, but no. Perhaps the reason is that football matches are still being played in empty stadiums, so Charlie and I can see what we’re missing. It’s a bit like peering through the window of your favourite watering hole and watching your mates enjoying themselves, but being unable to go in. The hardest game to sit through was QPR vs Brentford last month — not because we lost, but because we won. Brentford’s stadium is less than three-and-a-half miles away from QPR’s, making this a proper west London derby, and one we nearly always lose.