The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time.
One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of George W. Bush's Iraq War.
Life was a damned muddle - a football game with everyone offside and the referee gotten rid of - everyone claiming the referee would have been on his side.
How on earth can otherwise sensible people get so involved in a football game? You could measure the lasting impact on the lives of the people who played it at just about zero.
The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time.
People are very proud of Newcastle, very proud to come from here. This is a working class City and they just want to enjoy themselves and live life to the full. They work all week, pick their wages up at the end of the week and they spend it over a weekend by having a good time and watching the football. That's our life.
I'm in pro football to win, to have the Raiders dominate, to have the Raiders global, and we're not going to be able to do that with a half-filled stadium.