The Run of Play is a blog about
the wonder and terror of soccer.

We left the window open during a match in October 2007 and a strange wind blew into the room.

Now we walk the forgotten byways of football with a lonely tread, searching for the beautiful, the bewildering, the haunting, and the absurd.

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Maradona’s Cigar Caused the Chelsea Fire Alarm, Fireman Maybe Jokingly Claims

Today’s rumor, courtesy of a fireman who answered the bell at Chelsea’s team hotel in Manchester yesterday morning: the fire alarm that forced the evacuation of the hotel and caused the Chelsea players to spend 40 minutes waiting outside in the cold was set off by Diego Maradona’s cigar party on the 14th floor. I don’t really believe this one, but I’d like it to be true. It sounds like the second act of a play. In the third act Maradona, Mourinho and Phil Scolari wind up arguing about politics on the roof.