The lack of purpose to the match confused Halls but, when he spoke to the locals and heard them describe their affection for the team, it began to make sense.
Other couples, however, described public affection in more ominous terms.
And, unaccountably, Lively defers a detailed portrait of Golsoncott's mistress, her grandmother Beatrice, until the final chapter, where she's at last remembered and described with affection.
Liz Cadman, 29, who runs the review blog My Subscription Addiction, describes her affection for monthly deliveries as a gamble that does not always pay off.
That "appreciation for detail and minutiae," as Mr. Spader describes his affection for acting, helped secure his most sustained professional success so far, "Boston Legal," which ran for five seasons.
With her head wrapped against the morning sun and her face lined by worry and worn by weather, Stemele described her affection for Mandela in stark terms, adding: "The whites used to beat us and call us kaffirs," she said.
He describes the affection he felt as a teenager for Freud, a warmth reciprocated by the great man, and the importance of that influence on the entire Jones family.
He also recounts how Coco Chanel gave him 12 signed drawings by Matisse, which he sold for food and rent, and describes his affection for Maria Callas and his dislike of "the horrible Aristotle Onassis".
Mr. Flanagan once described his affection for Ireland this way: "It is not the romantic, rather sentimental Ireland of many Irish-Americans that I love, but the actual Ireland, a complex, profound, historical society, woven of many strands, some bright and some dark".
In a 1996 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Prince summed up this God + sex philosophy best when describing his affection for then-new wife Mayte Garcia.
