OUT IN THE COLD

TREVOR HEFT PONDERS WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO MISS YOUR TEAM'S CRUCIAL CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GAME, OR EVEN KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON, BECAUSE YOU WERE ON A STARGAZING TRIP

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IANGLE my neck like I'm peer-ing up towards a big screen, mumbling curses to frighten off the dreaded letters VAR.

I push my hood away from my eyes, and I turn my head to try and uncover something new across the night sky, something neither I nor the qualified astronomer to my left have seen before.

Unfortunately, one star looks exactly like another, though arguably brighter and - if you're really willing to stretch the truth - bigger, but only in your mind's eye.

This, it turns out, is crucial. In these circumstances, you simply must have mastery over your imagination. At least so says the professional stargazer.

Also, it's cold. I mean, really cold, the kind of cold that lifts splinters from your bones, breaking apart off-white fragments, and drawing the frost into your bloodstream.

I mean, of course it's cold. The nine o'clock chimes are long behind us, it's a January evening, and I'm on top of what us Brits would call a mountain, in the middle of an equally British nowhere, so over ten minutes' drive from a Costa Coffee machine.

But worse than where I am or what I'm doing is what I'm not doing, what I'm missing - the Champions League. “It's brilliant, this,” I lie to my friend, who invited me here long before European football was anything more than a distant dream.

He looks back at me, embarrassed, as the rest of the group - guide included - cast me the kind of glance intended to turn my blood cold.

I stare them all down, thinking “get a grip” but saying “sorry”, then our expert kicks up again, purring on about galaxies near and far as if they aren't all far.