Chapter 6

You know I didn’t always spend most of my time in front of the TV, watching every series,sitcom and sporting match going, eating, and hardly moving at all. Well except for changing positions, fluffing my pillow, and general comfort movement. Nope I did stuff. There was a time in the past, the dark days, when we never had satellite TV, when we only had four channels. Four channels, can you believe that? No wonder we did other things. Every Friday afternoon a bunch of us would walk down to the University fields and play soccer. Sometimes we’d only have enough for a four a side game, and sometimes more people would come down, people who’d been brought over by any member of the gang with the promise of a bit of fun, a run around, sometimes we’d join in with people who were already there, or anyone walking past would ask to join in, and we rarely ever said no. Rarely. There was this one guy who seemed a little to eager. He’d show up on his bike, take his shirt off and insist on being on the skins side, even though no one else was half naked. He’d go in for tackles too hard, with all his gear on, boots, pads, studs showing, with the rest of us kitted out in, well nothing in the way of proper kit. Barefoot versus studs and you know who’s coming out on top. Those were simpler times. Playing football on a Friday afternoon on a quarter of the university rugby fields. The rugby fields were also the cricket field and was generally much better looked after then the soccer field and so was generally very appreciated by our shoeless feet. How I used to dominate those sessions. Others would probably remember it differently, but in my mind its crystal clear. I remember this one guy, we’ll call him Jabs. He fancied himself quite a cultured footballer, often lamenting the fact that he was stuck playing with us when he belonged in the big leagues. Typical stuff you’d find from a Liverpool supporter, delusions of grandeur would best sum up the feelings here. He was a good player, but me, I was different class. Like I said I remember things a bit differently to how he, or others may. I remember this one afternoon, it was an unusually hot afternoon, those hot days when the humidity hangs thickly in the air, the sweat pours down your top with almost no excursion needed. The type of day that makes even women “glisten.” The grass was just cut, with the accompanying freshly cut grass smell that always seems to best fit any out side fantasies. We had a good turn out, i think about seven a side. I remember vividly running at Jabs all afternoon, dribbling, putting the ball past him, through his legs, every trick in the book, just running circles around him all game. There was one point where i remember him on his knees, after being left for dead yet again, looking up to the sky, tears of frustration and embarrassment flowing down his cheeks, begging God to “Please, please make him stop, he’s just too good, he’s just too good.” Come to think of it that was just a typical Friday afternoon. Firing in the goals, making grown men cry. Yup just a typical Friday afternoon.