| Flight details: | Cup final day, and of all my flights in Britain, this was the closest to it - not to the modern game with its fancy dans, show ponies and Carlos Kickaballs, but to playing in the 1970 replay between Leeds United and Chelsea.
I take off in a stiff breeze, and it's cagey for a while. Then I see an open goal and I tap it in -- up to almost 4,000 feet, and I'm one-nil up, along with a couple of dozen teammates. Then we're all milling about in a zero. Aren't we supposed to be flying cross-country, I think to myself? So off I go towards the next ridge, with only a single Ozone ahead of me.
We arrive with a fair bit of height, but rather than pressing on a ridge further, we start searching for lift. Not much is there; and soon we're in a congested midfield as the couple of dozen come to join us, including Matt York on his new Tequila. In Italy they call it catenaccio; we try to give nothing away, but we can't create anything either. Every promising opening is closed down by the oppo's destroyers.
Eventually there's only one thing for it. Take this climb low over that wood (one collapse here and it's a red card for me), avoid that wind turbine, scrape off the plateau and hope for some leeside action on the other side.
Yes! There it is. Norman Hunter bites my legs, Chopper Harris let's me know he's here, but I'm climbing a little, and I can dive thankfully on to the next ridge, which is a bit cleaner-shaped and freer of trees. But is it nice smooth lift there? No, I can see from the few gliders already soaring it that it's rough as old boots. I push out above some circling seagulls, to be rewarded with a sly dig from Billy Bremner, an elbow in the ribs from Eddy McCreadie, and a push in the back from Jack Charlton that turns me upside down -- only for my trusty Mentor to restore me gently to the correct attitude. Back to the ridge, and I take another sharp chance; I'm up and running, with a blue and pink Gradient under me.
Straight over the next ridge, on to a |
