{"id":32546,"date":"2012-05-16T17:20:48","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T17:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/belfast_tl-_henry_mcdonald_on_football_soccer-the_game_that_lets_you_leave\/"},"modified":"2012-05-16T17:20:48","modified_gmt":"2012-05-16T17:20:48","slug":"belfast_tl-_henry_mcdonald_on_football_soccer-the_game_that_lets_you_leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=32546","title":{"rendered":"(Belfast Tl.) Henry McDonald on how Football (Soccer) helped him heal over his loss of his parents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At Wembley [for the recent FA cup semi-final] , I knew that the time was right to return to Goodison [home stadium for Everton of whom he is a life-long supporter]. I thought of the last time I brought my father over, when we had seats in the Bullens Road side of the ground.<\/p>\n<p>He was captivated by a lady in her eighties wearing an Everton shirt and bellowing at the top of her lungs at the players on the park to &#8220;get stuck into them&#8221; as well as exchanging a few choice chants at the Middlesbrough fans in the away-section near the corner flag.<\/p>\n<p>My father told absolutely everyone we met afterwards, from the pub to the airport, about this &#8220;brilliant wee woman&#8221; who has had a season ticket for more than half a century. He adored her spirit and her energy, in spite of her years.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk\/opinion\/news-analysis\/the-game-that-lets-you-leave-all-troubles-behind-16158795.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Wembley [for the recent FA cup semi-final] , I knew that the time was right to return to Goodison [home stadium for Everton of whom he is a life-long supporter]. I thought of the last time I brought my<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=32546\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,39,50,101,438,199,325,98,184,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-children","category-death-burial-funerals","category-england-uk","category-ireland","category-marriage-family","category-parish-ministry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}