At the corner of Holmesdale Road I saw a boy of six or seven on his father's shoulders with a Palace flag in one hand and the other hand stretched out trying to touch the side of the bus as it went past. He could not reach.
His father lifted him higher. The boy still could not reach. The father stopped trying and just held him up there with both arms, in the smoke, in the noise, on a Thursday night in April outside a football ground neither of them had thought they would ever see a European semi-final at.
The boy was crying. The father was crying. The men either side of the father were crying.
I turned my face away from the window because I did not want the lads on the bus to see what I had just seen.
Sarah saw anyway.
She did not say anything. She put one hand flat on the seat between us. Did not look at me. Watched the road. Gave me the minute.
I gave myself the minute too.
