Ever since summer, it had sizzled inside me like a Spanish sun.
Now, as the seasons had turned through green, gold, to grey, I would have it.
The birthday blip that burst my dreams was behind, and, this time, I was certain to have one.
After all, it was obvious.
Ben’s tail wagged with excitement, pattering presents with pine needles and setting off baubles like Newton’s cradles.
Under the tree was a package, perched atop the others, that no wrapping paper could disguise.
For weeks, when alone in the living room (that magical feeling: darkness, except the coloured constellation from the tree), I’d held and caressed it, running a finger over the sheen of the paper until it found the small hole just below…
Ever since summer, I’d longed for one.
The Tango, the official ball of the World Cup, black curved triangles (a bit like pairs of knickers) that interlinked and formed white circles inside.
The boys from Brazil.
Espana ‘82, a summer of samba stars that shone bright amongst sultry after-school nights.
I prepared to unwrap it and imagined myself as Zico (the number ten on my back), striking it from outside the penalty box. It bent around the defensive wall of opposition players, their heads turned in slow motion, jaws dropped, mirroring the crowd behind, and flew towards the top right-hand corner of the goal, just above the rising outstretched glove of the keeper.
I had shown more interest in Classics (grades even improved), learning that my other hero, Socrates, was not just a midfield maestro.
At six-foot four with curly dark hair and beard, he looked as if he had descended from the clouds, down from Mount Olympus, clothed not in a white toga but the famous yellow shirt of Brazil (when I was old enough, maybe next year, I would grow a beard and wear his number 8 on my shirt).
The skip passed two Russian midfielders, then smack, into the top corner; the deceptive leisurely stroll into the box onto Eder’s flick; the puff of white chalk from the goal line that signalled Zoff had been beaten at his near post…
But despite his heroics, Italy had knocked out Brazil (Mr Rossi too, so it seemed, had hidden talents, being more than a cartoon character).
I’d been as equally heartbroken, if not more, at their exit as my own nation’s. So much so, I had boycotted pizza for almost two weeks.
But truly, there seemed no limit to Socrates’s talents, as soon after, rumours flew around the playground that he would even sign for the local team and attend the medical university in his capacity as a doctor.
It seemed there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do (smoked like a chimney as well, apparently).
Imagine him on the pitch, in our crumbling old stadium?
Of course, it proved to be nothing more than just back page speculation to sell newspapers (it worked on me), and Socrates had gone, ironically, to Italy, to the likely lure of more lira and certainly more sun.
By coincidence, that new season’s away strip (yellow top, blue shorts and white socks) had been the same as Brazil’s and had inspired the request for one, along with a Tango, for my upcoming birthday.
There were no football shaped presents that time, but there had been a promising package, left to last, that surely must’ve concealed an away kit.
It turned out to be a pair of green fleecy lined pyjamas to replace (thank God) the soon-to-be-unseasonal, lilac polyester jacket and trousers. Winter draws on.
I turned the Tango once more in my hands (again, searching for the small recess at the valve), and, with the crackle of the wrapping paper imitating the roar of the crowd, images flashed through my mind: me as Zico taking a freekick; Socrates’s beard; the puff of white chalk…
Gooooooooooooal!
At first it hadn’t sunk in – the dull, orange, dimpled surface, below the tear in the wrapping paper that revealed not a Tango, but the words ‘Wembley Trophy’.
Through a lump in my throat, I mimed a ‘thank you’ at my parents.
There was always next birthday, I suppose, but that was an eternity: nine months.
The same time it took a baby to grow inside (recently learned in biology; although, I still wasn’t convinced that was how my parents brought me into the world).
I quite liked the look of the new Mitre official Football League ball (white, again, with red hexagonal patches that crept around the middle, meeting at the centre with the yellow lion crest in a circle that looked like linked paperclips). Maybe I’d ask for one of them…