Football

Five A Side – No Injuries :)

This is all going marvellously, my idea to get enough people to play five a side has worked sufficiently well to see 11 people turn up last night meaning we could field two complete teams. It involved quite a lot of thinking for me to work out how to balance the two teams, so that one slightly weaker team could play with six people against a slightly stronger team with five people. It was all a bit confusing, so I just handed out bibs, helpfully provided by Simon, as I felt might be appropriate and fortunately it transpired to be a very close game.

After managing to hurt my hamstring, or whatever it’s called as I don’t know, at the last match, I’m pleased that my warming up exercises meant that I wasn’t injured during this hour of running about. It’s bloody tiring though all this running, so I mostly stood at the back and pretended this was essential to support our goalkeeper. I didn’t go in goal this time, the new talent coming through seems to kick the ball very hard and I was worried about my safety. I wasn’t worried about the safety of others though, they need to toughen up.

Good to welcome Michael, a barman from O’Reilly’s days, and that meant a mini reunion with him for Ian and Ross after fifteen or so years. Dylan ran about with enthusiasm and youth, which annoyed me, whilst Liam and Danny play like I do, namely with a degree of incompetence but lots of enthusiasm. Nathan also has far too much energy, but he’s nearly 30 and so that will soon dry up. Alex, who claimed to be of average ability, was the new star of the show, so he might get randomly placed once again on my side at the next game. Ian and Simon are good at controlling the pitch, or whatever the technical term is, during play by shouting a lot, but I ignore all of that as I get muddled up with where I’m supposed to be. Also good to meet Inca, recruited by Ian, and I’m hopeful of ensuring we have enough now for future matches although I’ll keep recruiting new talent (or lack of it). It’s not important who wins, but I’m certainly not planning to lose by much….

Anyway, I digress. Enough of football and back to history and pubs.