There are many unexplained things in the universe. Many of which are beyond the realms of human understanding. We simply do not have the capacity, for example, to understand the concept of what existed before time itself. Not that time exists anyway, as it’s simply a measurement we use to govern the passage of existence from our own perspective. If there was a big bang, what existed (using the concept of time) a second before it happened? Or an hour before? Does one universe expand infinitely forever or does it eventually collapse in on itself and implode, then explode…creating a big bang and the birth of a new universe? Are we the first universe of its kind or are we the result of the millionth big bang? Was there ever a definitive beginning? If there was, then how can the nothingness that existed beforehand be defined?

These unanswered questions do not stop us from completing our mundane schedule of sleep, work, eat, relax, sleep, eat, procreate, sleep, work.....and so on. And by the time human life exhausts itself from existence, the universe probably won’t even know we existed in the first place. We are pretty insignificant - one planet in a universe of billions upon billions of galaxies.

It’s quite probable that there are other planets out there that have allowed for life to evolve. And their version of life may be incomprehensible in comparison to ours in about 1000 different ways - like the mixture of chemicals on their own planet, their conception of time and their rate of evolutionary progression. Billions and billions of planets. Billions of societies. Billions of lives being lived.

And yet out of all the billions in the universe, Planet Earth is the one that manages to birth Darren Ashley Bent. The one and same Bent replacing the injured Carlton Cole in the England squad for this Wednesdays World Cup qualifier against the Ukraine. A cosmic event equivalent to a rock the size of a penny disintegrating in the earth’s atmosphere.

There are probably a billion Darren Bents plotted around the vast expanding space above us (I'm basing that on the assumption that alien planets play competitive sports). Some might even possess an abundance more all-round ability to their game that just having a knack of being in the right place at the right time to witness a ball bounce of a shin and into the net.

But more than likely, they are not too dis-similar to the version we have on this planet.

A lucky star.

Darren - fingers crossed for Wednesday. I hope you come off the bench and score with your bum.