AFTER a while, one does tend to get football withdrawal symptoms.

For a while, I had the Copa America and the Women’s World Cup to keep me occupied.

Comparing the two I have to say it was the women’s football that was far more entertaining to watch.

It was end-to-end stuff for 90 minutes — and flicking between the two matches last week I opted for the women’s football.

I never admitted how boring the game can be if there are two teams who want to pass the ball between themselves for several minutes before going forward.

I have to say the women’s football was far more attacking.

They got the ball and within seconds there they were in the penalty box.

No messing around and making the football look pretty.

NONETHELESS, it is now mid-July and I have got into the watching-old-matches-on-YouTube phase — mostly re-runs of early 1980s and late 1970s world football documentaries.

People aged in their 20s might now be thinking “I will never turn out like that”.

Yes you will. You will just be watching football from another era.

That is what happens. Or you could just pull up videos of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis terrorising the English batting back in the early 1990s.

You remember when they thought they were cheating but it was only because the English could not swing anything and the Pakistanis could?

That normally kills two hours of fasting time.

WITH the final week of Ramadan upon us I think it is time to try to do something different.

The thing about evening meals is that everyone wants to feed you the same old food.

I know one should not scoff at this but there has to be someone who decides to serve some fish and chips.

I am all curried out. I must have had every curry imaginable.

When one is invited to a home to break the fast, one should be glad that there is food on the table. Twenty-three days in — and if I see another lamb or chicken curry I may go a little mental.

This week I am hoping to go somewhere to have simple fish and chips. No salt, no tomato sauce, no HP sauce and no mayonnaise — just some fish and chips served with a dash of vinegar.