Coming in to land

A distant shot, and probably technically a little beyond the reach of my lens from my third floor vantage point, but I liked the shape of the Wood Pigeon's wings as it came in to land.
As I posted early yesterday after the morning's author PR pictures shoot, I missed the chance to comment on last night's football. I went to the pub to meet up with some of the guys I used to play (non-competitive) Meadows football with many summers ago. Arriving more or less in time for kick-off I discovered there was a pub quiz in progress and my friends were nowhere to be seen. A quick phone call and I found out that they had seen about the quiz earlier and moved to a different pub. No problem - it was only a short walk away and so I should get there about halfway through the first half. Given the cagey nature of some of the knockout matches in the tournament I probably wouldn't miss much action.
Except.
Of course, as the world knows, the wheels came off the Brazilian World Cup campaign big style in those twenty or so minutes as I walked up Leith Walk. A little reminiscent of going to see Chelsea play Walsall at Stamford Bridge back in the 1980s when I was a student in London that I have already written about. I walked into the pub to see the score at the top of the screen was 4-0. I did at least see the fifth goal, the fourth in 400 seconds from a rampant German side. Playing like it was five-a-side, with everything coming off for them. Sad as it was for the hosts and their fans, I was pleased that their rather limited team was found out before winning the competition. So we are left with the prospect of the replaying of at least two previous World Cup Finals to conclude the tournament. Tonight we have a replay of the 1978 Final - Argentina v Netherlands. From memory the start was delayed over some controversy over one the Van der Kerkhof brothers who was wearing a cast of some sort on an injured wrist. Which was good news for me as I had been away with the Scouts at a hillwalking competition and we got back to Dundee a little late on the Sunday evening and thought we would miss more of the game than we actually did. Wonder what I was thinking in going away for the weekend with a World Cup final due anyway! And then depending on who wins that it is either a re-run of 1974 (West) Germany v Netherlands - the first final I really remember seeing at the time (I suspect my memories of the 1970 Final, when I was only six, have been topped up by subsequent re-runs of that classic game) - or the back-to-back West Germany v Argentina finals of 1986 and 1990. Given the German performance last night it's hard to see either Netherlands or Argentina stopping them winning their third trophy in their eighth final. If the Dutch do get there and lose another final that will be their fourth final defeat - something about teams in orange in cup finals?