August 15, 2026

The Avalanche in the Snow

From kickoff to half-time to the final whistle, it’s only 110-odd minutes, a tiny increment of time within an epochal English football campaign and yet it remains a pure and exhilarating testament to how the sport can – to paraphrase Piero Trellini when he venerated another mythical match: 1982 Italy-Brazil – ‘sediment inside you forever.’ Faces come into sharp focus when eyes are squeezed shut. Reciting the names comes as effortlessly as breathing. The memories mollify during seasons of mediocrity, the triumphs dance through the most lucid of dreams.

The significance of all this is sharp and clear. During a supporter’s lifetime, there occurs an infinity of football moments, each infinitely divisible, each infinitely divisible for infinity, and yet on this particular Saturday afternoon, a tiny clutch of moments were snatched from the oblivion of history, clasped forever close and made eternal.

If Manchester United-West Bromwich Albion is not the game of the century, it’s at least the match of a lifetime.

This is the story of the ‘avalanche in the snow.’

Available online and in UK bookshops February 1, 2027.