I wasn’t going to blog this, but I think Nathan thought that I needed more exciting content and since he asked if I would be, I decided that I would…. Nathan, who was celebrating his 32nd birthday (despite his claims he’s more like 52), thought footgolf would be a marvellous idea. Although I’m a natural athlete (mostly at things that don’t involve much movement) I was a little concerned about what could possibly go wrong.
I’m not sure whether Adam and Robbie want me writing about this exciting day, but they won’t see the post, so that sorts out that concern. Here’s the football I was using for the day. Note Nathan is in shorts, he had changed nearby like some rogue PE teacher as he wanted to be in sportswear for this to allow for maximum movement. Robbie, Adam and I were in jeans as we hadn’t realised we were supposed to dress in sportswear as that wasn’t mentioned in the invite.
Here’s our young Fernando Torres who has just booted his first shot into the grass. He showed all the finesse of someone destined for ending up mid-table, but he supports Norwich City and so that’s in keeping.
Very athletic. He then promptly stood in something that a dog had left behind. This annoyed him, I don’t think that he’s used to that in the stadiums he usually plays in.
I’m not saying that Nathan is competitive, but I did wonder whether he had been out playing footgolf all week in preparation. He denied, in an annoyed voice, this suggestion. Incidentally, I thought that the pitch and putt course had separate times for footgolf and actual golf, but they just have people go around at the same time.
If I’m being honest, I took photos in the hope that Nathan fell over. I was mildly annoyed that he didn’t as that would have made for a more fun photo.
Nathan had a great idea that to help Robbie he’d put himself in harm’s way. I thought this made perfect sense, but the readers of this blog (all two of them) can probably guess from Robbie’s positioning here that it didn’t work very well. Robbie, who is nicer than me as a person, was worried about kicking Nathan. That wouldn’t have crossed my mind.
Nathan pretended not to be keeping score, promising to “just add it up at the end”, but we all knew he had a mental spreadsheet running by the second hole. I’d also add that I’m about the least competitive person ever. Unless it involves Nathan as he just makes me competitive, that’s another one of his talents.
Adam wasn’t very competitive at all, witnessed by how he spent a lot of time in the shrubbery. I didn’t say anything, I thought that was for the best.
I was partly surprised that Nathan wasn’t in full football kit rather than casual sportswear. Note that Robbie and Adam took great care of their jackets, that’s proper informal wear.
Perhaps sub-optimal for Adam. It was quite busy at the course so it took us a couple of hours to get around the 18 hours, but there was no rush and the weather was agreeable.
Nathan realised that although shorts showed off his hairy legs to the ladies, they also meant that he got stung whilst walking about in the nettles.
This was the final hole and it transpired that Robbie and Adam were playing for the third and fourth places. And there were spectators so I noticed that Nathan was prancing around like Sky Sports were filming. Once again, I didn’t say anything.
And the final results. Nathan won with 67, I was second with 70, Robbie was third with 81 and Adam was fourth with 82. Nathan pretended that he wasn’t really excited about this. But we all knew that this score card would be getting framed and put on his wall.
Anyway, a marvellous day and thank you to Nathan to the invite for his big day (although when he reads this I’m unlikely to get an invite next year) which was a lot of fun. And it was great company, with Nathan’s amusing commentary adding positively to the whole experience for everyone.