An incredible happening

Today, I met Paul Collingwood. I had an in-the-flesh experience with the England one-day captain. This is the most amazing thing that ever has, or will ever, happen to me.

Well… I say, “met”. I meant, of course, walking past him, or a man who looks just like him in a public place. The eye-contact was one-way.

Funnily enough, it happened today in London’s Tower Hill Station, not in Durham. I was mumbling under my breath about annoying tourists, shoving my ticket into the barrier machine and there He was. He was walking in the opposite direction, in full England track-suit.

He is surprisingly tall, and doesn’t really look at all like my dad.

Sadly, the pressures of London commuting are such that I didn’t have time to worship his beautiful all-round feet. As soon as I saw the Great Man, he was gone. He was just a blip in the crowd.

I was rather hoping that the aura of his inspirational leadership would rub off on me. It didn’t; the whole journey was a nightmare. It was a long and gritty affair, and it was certainly not pretty. Despite the scrappiness, I got there in the end.

You can read a jolly interesting history of Tower Hill Station here. I’ll notify the authors of this historical event so they can add it to their account.