Flight

For all the carefully composing of shots of rippled sand (see extra) today's blip is a quick shot grabbed as these birds flew over my head towards their night time roost out on the water.
Lots of discussion about Maradona in the media today, including plenty of opinions on social media. Was slightly surprised to see someone I know saying they would shed no tears for an overweight, cheating drug-addict (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist). Which set me to thinking about Maradona in particular and 'cheating' in football more generally. Obviously for many football fans of a certain age, Maradona is closely associated with 'that goal' against England in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and I can only assume that it was that very specific grievance that had prompted the dismissive summary of Maradona's career. No doubt he was flawed and those flaws were exploited and deepened as he moved around the world. Might things have turned out differently had he had more people looking out for his welfare or was he always likely to follow a tragic trajectory? Clearly there are England supporters, and players, for whom that moment of seeking to gain an advantage by illegal means colours Maradona's whole career. They even dismiss the other goal as tainted by the situation, or blame poor defending by specific players in the England team who 'should' have stopped the mesmerising run sooner. Something that can surely be said about any goal - there is always something the defending team could have done better at some point in the build-up to the moment the ball crosses the line. And the rest of Maradona's achievements cut no ice with these hardline England fans. No recognition of his success in that World Cup, leading his team from the front to win the trophy, or taking them to the final in the next World Cup four years later. A tournament where Argentina defeated the hosts Italy in a semi-final in Naples where Maradona had been playing for the local team. Napoli with Maradona won the Italian league twice and finished runner-up twice in four seasons and once again Maradona became an icon who stood for much more than football - the tensions between the North and South of Italy, rich and poor, played out on the football pitch. So much so that in Naples in that semi-final many Napoli fans support Maradona's Argentina rather than their home nation. Which brings us back to the Hand pf God goal, overlaid with the politics of the day. It wasn't that long after the Falklands War and the nationalist elements of both sides played up the connection. Given the choice, between the jingoistic English nationalism of The Sun's Gotcha and Thatcher's militarism and the Argentinian 'underdog' challenging an ageing Empire my politics was always make me likely to side with Maradona. When you overlay that with the lazy equation of England=UK on the sporting back pages I lived with all my life and hearing commentators on my 'national' TV channel tell me that 'we' are kicking off in Mexico, I was cheering on the team in blue and white that day. I've talked before about 'Anyone But England' and how it reflects the way that I tend to pick sides every football match I watch. Some teams - Dundee United, Leeds United and Scotland - are top of my list and others  - Celtic, Man United, England - are at the bottom. As for 'cheating', unless players own up to every transgression and refuse to take advantage of every occasion in which they have broken the rules of the game it seems impossible to brand someone a cheat just because their law breaking went unpunished by the referee. Isn't all breaking of the rules cheating? Is Beckham a cheat because he kicked an Argentinian player in a different World Cup game?
Apologies for the rambling football post. RIP Maradona.