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The touchline timeline | Peter Preston

Source: The Guardian

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

Just as in my childhood, winning or losing together remains a basic lesson on the great field of life

One thing in life does not change. Here I am, back on the school touchline again. Mums are holding bottles of water. Noisy dads are shouting "Push up, son" or, more crudely, "Get stuck in, blues". Bored sisters are chatting at the back. And, out on the pitch, 22 11-year-olds, some brawny and puffing, some titchy and nippy, are chasing a ball – and dreaming of miracles to come.

Nothing changing here? No: absolutely nothing. That's one of my grandsons in the centre of the defence, the lad with the clumping tackle and booming boot. Roll back three decades, and it could be his uncle, my second son: same flopping hair, same enthusiastic forward surge, same hoofed pass over the heads of the opposing back line. And that agile kid in goal, rushing out to punch a corner away, that could be my other son, clumping tackler's dad: same school, same team, same faces set in grim determination.

Go back three more decades, and the goalkeeper was me. Another school, but no real e

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