“Gooal!!! Yes!!! Get in!!!”

Karl hugged Robbo, Robbo hugged back. It had all been worth it.

It had looked dodgy for a while it was fair to say.

Asking the Missus if he could go to Madrid for the Champions League final five minutes after accidentally killing his Mother-In-Law, for example. That was a quandary.

What had happened was, he’d been round putting some photo-frames with pics of the kids up for the old lady whose name was Muriel. He’d had a few tools on the top of the stepladder. Then that bloody cat had jumped up onto the bottom rung wobbling it, a big spanner had fallen off and slammed straight into Muriel’s temple killing her instantly in her chair.

He’d always meant to broach the game that afternoon, while the Missus was having lunch with her mates in town. A well-timed text. This slightly complicated things though. Made it more important to establish the principal quickly.

Things like people dying made the Missus unpredicatable. It was even possible she’d do something silly like organise the funeral for the same day as the final or something. He knew how she was.

So he’d clear the trip first then tell her the bad news when she got home. If he booked the flights in the meantime, they’ed be harder to cancel.

He’d phoned Robbo and told him to come over quick. Robbo was his partner in the decorating business, a specialist in restorations and a fellow Reds fan.

Muriel had a spanner-shaped bruise on her temple and blood on her cardi.

Karl reckoned the Missus would be narked if she thought he was involved. That was the sort of thing that, illogically, in his opinion, might endanger the whole trip

Much better, if he could make it look like, what was it called? Natural causes.

So they set to work on Muriel’s restoration.

Make up, a clean cardi, prop her in her chair with a bag of mintos hanging from one hand.

Bob’s your uncle.

Robbo had just left when the Missus arrived. Good professional job.

However then things had got sticky.

She made quite a scene, holding Muriel in her arms and weeping and wailing, crazy really, until some of the make-up came off.

Then she’d gone hysterical and called the police, accusing him of allsorts.

He’d tried to explain but it ended up with him and Robbo being arrested.

There were no tvs in the police cell where he was being held so the lawyer had advised him that if he really wanted to see the game at all, the only way would be to plead guilty to manslaughter, avoid a lengthy trial and make sure you got a good chair in the prison common room.

All things considered, he’d rather have been in Madrid, he’d rather not be about to divorce, or be starting a ten stretch, he didn’t even have anything against Muriel, he’d liked her.

But for a while he’d thought he wouldn’t even get to see the game and now here he was with his best mate, watching Liverpool winning the Champions League!

Yes It had all been worth it

After all, as the great Bill Shankly said, “Football isn’t a matter of life and death, it’s much more serious than that!”