I was on a walking tour of Boston once and I remember hearing a guide announce that the State House, build in 1713, was the oldest building in the United States. At the time I chuckled at the realization that the oldest building in the town I grew up in – Dover– was roughly five centuries older.That’s the amazing thing about the UK. Everything’s so bloody old!
Take this weekend for example. Emma and I attended a soccer match including two mid-tier soccer clubs that you've never heard (if you're American): Sheffield Wednesday and Hartlepool United. But let me add a bit of historical perspective here: Sheffield Wednesday was playing its first fixtures when Americans were still having wars with native Indians!
Sheffield Wednesday Football Club was founded in 1867; two years after the end of the American Civil War, nine years before the battle of Little Bighorn and one hundred years before the first Superbowl. Hartlepool United was formed in 1881, six years before Pearl Harbor even became a part of the USA.
One hundred and thirty-eight years after the fromer came into being, 9% of Sheffield's population convened upon Cardiff, the capital of Wales, with 20% of the population of Hartlepool for another one of those amazing contests that makes football the greatest game on earth: the League One Play-Off Final.
Sheffield ran out 4-2 winners in extra-time and with that result returned to the second flight of English professional soccer.
Emma cried when the fourth goal went in. I cried before a ball was even kicked when 41,000 Wednesdayites belted out “Hi-ho, Sheffield Wednesday” in unison before kick-off.
OK, that sounds pathetic, and I confess, it was. But the atmosphere was cracking. I recommend you attend a football league play-off final the next chance you get!
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