“Life, and World Cup qualification, played a cruel trick on me. The first World Cups I was old enough to follow were in 1974 and 1978, when I was nine and 13 years of age. And it was precisely these two that my native England missed, losing out in qualification to Poland and Italy respectively. In 1982, though the road was bumpy, England did manage to make it to Spain, and I could at last savour the experience of watching my country in a World Cup. It was intense, but by now I was 17, had discovered music, and there was a lot going on in political terms as well. So I didn’t live and breathe the competition in the same way as a younger version of myself would have done.” The World Game – Tim Vickery (Video)