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Simon Barnes

Simon Barnes

British journalist

Jun 15, 2026

7:46
Tell us about your memories of this.
7:48
Yeah, I was, I think, 14.
7:52
No, I was 14, just about to turn 15, watching on the screen in Streatham.
7:58
And I'd been all excited about this World Cup because, you know, there were England and stuff.
8:03
And we had England versus Uruguay.
8:07
And Uruguay parked the bus and England didn't know... how to cope with it.
8:12
They looked kind of naive, overwhelmed.

57 MINS LATER

65:23
An extraordinary acrobatic effort for Manchester City.
19:41
Mm.
19:41
And she turned her force onto me in the garden of the Tulse Hill Tavern in 1976 when we were drinking a once fashionable drink called Halston Pils.
19:53
And around about the second or the third drink, she suggested that we come, me and my then girlfriend, Ruth, travel with her and her partner, Mark, to India, where she was going.
20:06
[laughs] It was a lovely idea.
20:08
I'd just got some money from a bit of funky freelancing.
20:11
Anyway, by about the time we got into double figures of, uh, Pils, we were definitely going in three weeks time, and we did.
20:18
So I left Redhill.

9 MINS LATER

29:39
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