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Tragedy

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As the cameraman panned through the Brazilian crowd picking out the shocked and the grieving during their 7-1 defeat to Germany, I was shedding tears of my own, for different reasons. (And this explains the blog tailing off in the past few days). Yesterday I saw my baby daughter, Evie Hope, still born.

Sorry for the shock, those of you reading for a bit of light-hearted punditry probably didn't sign up for that. You may be thinking "why the f*ck is he posting on his blog the day after that"; and the answer is that life really must go on. I was sat yesterday in the hospital, after everything had unfolded with my day, and I found myself put in a room, with a telly, at 8:30pm. I had a choice. Sit there and be sad, or wham on the footy and watch what was the most shocking semi-final in living memory.

Incredible game and Brazil, as I and many feared might happen, were found out against organised opposition. Germany were just brilliant, playing disciplined and simple football, utterly unafraid of Brazil.

Tonight myself and the wife are back home, starting our recovery. She is an amazing person and has been through the most upsetting scenario that any woman can experience, and yet we are sat here, about to watch the second semi-final, happy in the knowledge that we have each other. She wants me to watch the footy, because she loves me. And so I will. I love her and support her 100 times as much as I support football. If we have a sad moment, the football will be paused or recorded and watched tomorrow. We will do what we need to do, and most of that will revolve around doing normal things and enjoying our lives as best we can.

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