World Cup Brazil 2014 / Weltmeisterschaft Brasilien

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

And so, another World Cup, and a good one, is over. Do other people measure their lives in these tournaments?

Definitely. In my case I probably measure it more by Olympics than football World Cups, but I well understand the measure of it, and I'm sure we aren't in any way alone.

That said, my earliest sporting memory would almost certainly be the 1966 World Cup final - not watching it of course, but the news and impact of it - because both my parents and older brothers were/are English and so it of course impacted on my young brain even then. But the '68 Olympics I remember very clearly, perhaps because they coincided with my seventh birthday, and if I wasn't a sports lover already, they certainly turned me. Since then, each Olympics marks another four years of my life... rather too many of them now for my liking, but there you are.