The magnetic draw of a pair of innocuous football boots on a shop shelf... For Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to New Boots, by Paul Rouse above.
A new pair of football boots is sitting on a rack in a shop in the midlands. They're heavily discounted in the sales – discounted so far that you’re drawn to wonder what must be wrong with them.
You don’t play anymore, undone by age, so you wander on and leave them sitting snugly beside each other, a perfect pair.
And then old habits take a hold and you wander back. You look at them for a little bit, as if standing in front of the Mona Lisa. You wonder, more than anything else, why it is you keep looking...
Paul Rouse's latest book, Sport in Modern Irish Life, is published by Merrion Press. Listen to more from Sunday Miscellany here.
