This Is Football

This isn’t the beautiful game that graces your eyes every weekend. There was no Rooney, no Messi and no Ronaldinho. This though was still the beautiful game.

Short of breath and dehydrated, it was a punishing day of five-a-side football for a group of work colleagues who are nearly all disgracefully unfit.

Enthusiastic and excited about the prospect of playing in a tournament, with the prize being the bragging rights of the company in my local area, training for the event had been rigorous.

Sky Sports and ESPN was all that I had watched in the run up to the weekends tournament in the hope that the skills of the nations best would rub off on me.

Practising goal celebrations in my head, dreaming of how many goals I’d score, how I’d score them and how many screaming scantily clad girls would be there in the crowd to shower me with adoration, I was relishing the day.

Despite my extensive preparation I failed to achieve anything I had dreamt of. Instead I had a greater issue to contend with – shortness of breath.

Starting the first game as an unsuccessful impact substitute, I ran on to the pitch with the same enthusiasm that I’ve always had for the game.

Unfortunately though I don’t have the same stamina I did ten years ago and after enthusiastically chasing the ball the down and putting the opposition under pressure, I was gasping for breath.

As I walked of the pitch and found and corner to exhaustedly fall into, I was asked by concerned friends if I was alright, as they’d clearly never seen anyone react so badly to ten minutes of exercise.

They needn’t have worried, as despite my exhaustion, I was as happy as John Terry with a friends ex-wife.

We progressed through the group stage of the competition with a 100% record and were given a 45 minute break before the quarter-finals to allow us to catch our breath and for our muscles to begin to seize up and become heavy.

As other teams were knocked out and suffered at the hands of the dreaded penalty shoot-out, so the crowds pressed up against the metal fencing began to grow.

At one point there were literally tens of people watching, something which I was quite aware of as we progressed through the tournament.

By the semi-final stage my legs were heavy with exhaustion and all I wanted to do was keep it simple, conscious of the growing crowd of friends and knowing that any little mistake could cost the team.

Unfortunately at this late stage of the day though, the spotlight was thrust upon me as I was played into a one-on-one situation with the keeper, in which I had far too much time to think about the opportunity. In the end I took none of the options to score that were racing through my head and instead poked it straight at the keeper.

Feeling the pressure of the occasion and the weight of my legs, I fluffed it. If I had been I the stands at Villa Park I would have been hurling abuse (probably at Heskey) and questioning how someone could miss such a great chance.

“My Gran could have scored that.”

Hearing the groans of disappointment from the crowd, I could immediately associate with the pressure that pro footballers have to carry, albeit on a minor scale.

Battered and bruised, delighted but exhausted, we reached the final.

Throughout the tournament we had been playing teams of a similar make-up to us, as they were enthusiastic, possibly hung over and certainly exhausted.

In the final we met a different team. They were calm on the ball, organised and not using every ounce of their being just to move their legs.

We were comfortably beaten, although the 1-0 scoreline suggests it was an even game. It wasn’t.

Despite trudging off defeated, my enthusiasm was undiminished; after all what is greater than football? Even if you do fall at the final hurdle.

Posted By Dan Mobbs - Tuesday March 23, 2010.
Tags: football