A funny thing happened at the football last Saturday, and not in a good way. My team, West Brom, were outplaying Derby County but, importantly, without managing to score a goal. Ordinarily, as the second half went on, I would have given in to pessimism, assuming that for all our dominance we’d not score, though Derby somehow would, and I’d go home miserable. But on this occasion, I really thought the match would be ours. Until this thing happened.
Play suddenly stopped, for reasons that were at first unclear. A few of the players were looking at something lying on the pitch. Gingerly, squeamishly, they edged closer to whatever it was. Bizarre. As opera glasses aren’t available on the backs of seats at football grounds, we couldn’t identify the object. Eventually a member of the ground staff appeared, wearing rubber gloves. He strode out to the middle of the pitch, picked the object up, and returned whence he came carrying half a pigeon – dead, obviously.
Yes, half a dead pigeon had fallen from the skies on to our pitch. My first thought wasn’t for the pigeon’s welfare, nor even where it had fallen from. All I could think of was that the game was now lost. There’s not a football team in the world able to survive such an obvious portent of doom. Half a dead animal falling from the heavens? Ye gods, I’ve seen some horrible things at West Brom, but nothing like this. I’ve not watched Game of Thrones, but I assume this is the kind of thing that goes on in it all the time.
I asked a club official what had happened. It turns out that we’ve long had a peregrine falcon nesting high up in our West Stand. I was told it often dines on pigeon and drops its leftovers on the pitch. But never, hitherto, on match days. A world of dark possibilities crowd into my mind. Could we not train it to drop its dinner on opposition strikers as they bear down on our goal? Or even, in extremis, have a little peck at the players? It’s the least this creature can do for us after Saturday’s debacle.
Oh yes, I should have said, the half-pigeon of doom saw to it that Derby did indeed win, with their only on-target shot of the match. And I went home miserable.
• Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist
