Your football "career" .

[Jimmy Don't]

Those of you who live near each other should really get a weekly session going. Book yourselves a Poweleague pitch for an hour and you'd be surprised how quickly your touch come back.

We have a Tuesday night Powerleague session, same pitch, same time, that we've been doing for 25+ years. I'm one of the oldest, but we have a couple our first team and a couple of our second team, all in their early 20s, who play. We play with no goalies, 3 touch and you have to be in the box to score. It's a real leveller as the youngesters can't just shift the away from you and smash the ball past a "non-goalie goalie" from the halway line, you all have to play football and keep moving.

(Very easy to arange via Whatsapp these days too - 10 people get to play, you're in every week, until you say you aren't available, then when you miss a week, once you say you are available, you are added to waiting the list for when the next person drops out)

 

[BigMoaner]

Left club football at around 15, used to play then with coats as goal posts on Tooting Bec common. Joined a five aside league around 27. Was playing my best football from around 35-40. Smashed my knee to bits at 42. Hung up the boots. Now do media appearances and wall ball in my yard with my son.

 

[BigMoaner]

have known plenty of chaps well into their 60s still playing. Feels far too risky for me though. My Mate is 56 and a box to box midfielder and has an engine of a 30 year old. I WOULD LOVE to be still playing and my heart feels a bit sick when I know I can’t.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

have known plenty of chaps well into their 60s still playing. Feels far too risky for me though. My Mate is 56 and a box to box midfielder and has an engine of a 30 year old. I WOULD LOVE to be still playing and my heart feels a bit sick when I know I can’t.

Genuinely feel for you mate, don't how I'd cope without it

 

[JimW]

Usual kid stuff, only ever made second eleven at school, though I like to think partly because I changed schools so often. Then in a five a side league with our hunt sab group and also a pub team occasionally. Most recent has been kid's kickabouts after school playing goalie for them.

 

[BigMoaner]

Genuinely feel for you mate, don't how I'd cope without it

The five aside league things run by companies so popular these days are marvellous. Ours had a top goal scorerer chart, very good refs, league table updated immediately. Really great business idea that had real value. Never resented paying the dosh. Had ten years playing in those leagues and it was a weekly highlight. Brilliant

 

[Spymaster]

Cricket's the only sport I've really excelled in. Most other sports I've been able to turn my hand to and put in a half decent performance ... except football.

At junior school most of the kids were football crazy and I was always very impressed by how good they were. It seemed like magic to me that they could do keep-it-up for ages whilst I could usually kick it twice before I lost it. Needless to say I didn't get anywhere near the school teams. Our cricket club plays 5-aside through the winter and I go along to watch and shout but I'm way past joining in now. In earlier adulthood I'd play if I had to but I've always been a bit of a liability. My football is now limited to gentle family kickarounds in the park since in 2011 I helped a friend with a kid's coaching session on some snow-covered tennis courts and got my leg broken by a 9 year old.

 

[DownwardDog]

I played 11-a-side last night for a mate's team because they were short-handed (short-footed?). Scored a pen because they were fannying around when nobody wanted to take it but we still lost 2-1. Today my left knee seems to have been replaced by a collection of red hot woodworking screws.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Football obsessed as a kid. Read books and studied the game. Couldn't wait to transfer the skills and knowledge I'd picked up from our kickabouts with the kids on our street and reading Joe Mercer's Book of Football into a proper, competitive game at primary school. Imagine my horror as I stuck rigidly to my preferred left-back position in my neat kit and proper boots whilst the rest of the kids ran around like sheep on whizz in their Bash Street Kids kit chasing the ball and kicking lumps out of each other. That sort of summed me up really.

My primary school was unusually large (second biggest in Devon, fact fans!), with nearly 500 kids, which warranted an A and B team. I flitted between the two. Mostly sub for the A team. Somehow I got scouted for a local youth league club, although I suspect they were more interested in my much sportier big brother and assumed we came as a pair.

I played a couple of seasons for them and have fond memories of a summer 5-a-side tournament where we played a few games in a day around Bristol and Portishead then had a tour of Ashton Gate in the evening and watched Rovers v City in the local bowl competition at Eastville. However, I'd come to realise that I really wasn't that good. I wasn't getting picked anymore, was more interested in railways, and after a day of reckoning where we got battered by the hardnuts of the Buckland estate in Newton Abbot (who I'm sure were older than us) in horizontal wind and rain I packed it in.

Came back to football in my late 20s. Used to play Friday nights on the astroturf with a loosely associated bunch of blokes. It was perfect. Just the right balance of kickabout fun with enough competition to make it interesting. Gave that up for various reasons in my mid-30s (mainly too knackered after our daughter was born with the sleepless nights). Remember the doctor saying it was probably a good thing as he sees too many middle-aged football injuries. Bumped into one of my former teammates a couple of years later and he had indeed suffered a horrific ligament tear on one of those Friday sessions, so no regrets on my part.

 

[Numbers]

Alternative Euro 2004 seven a side footbal game at Clissold Park, London

Alternative Euro 2004 at Clissold Park, London

www.urban75.org

Alternative Euro 2004 seven-a-s1de football match at Clissold Park, London

Alternative Euro 2004 at Clissold Park, London

www.urban75.org

 

[The39thStep]

The legendary Harlesden Hammers, winners of the SWP Skegness International Football comp 1985.

Your greatest personal sporting achievement

Well, what is it? The only sports I’ve really taken part in are rugby and running. While I wasn’t very good at either, I was always enthusiastic and it was important to me. Rugby I’ve not played since I was at school but at the time I was rather proud to play for the school first XV when still...

www.urban75.net

 

[BigMoaner]

This thread has bought on a wave of nostalgia and a bit of sadness too. Can remember Wednesdays at work and it was in the back of my mind all day looking forward to the game that night. We would be texting each other all day about tactics etc. it was very competitive. But just full stop great. The outfit ran four leagues so you were always matched like for like, always stood a chance. Good days and I miss them.

 

[tonysingh]

The legendary Harlesden Hammers, winners of the SWP Skegness International Football comp 1985.

View attachment 418666

Your greatest personal sporting achievement

Well, what is it? The only sports I’ve really taken part in are rugby and running. While I wasn’t very good at either, I was always enthusiastic and it was important to me. Rugby I’ve not played since I was at school but at the time I was rather proud to play for the school first XV when still...

www.urban75.net

Bloke at the front there looks very excited to have won.

 

[DotCommunist]

One time in school, yr 9, the list for the b team went up and my name was upon it. I'm not athletic, never was, I can graft but I'm not a player of physical games. Now the name on the board was my first and middle name but I was young and confused. I'd like to say I didn't get as far as turning up to the practise in full kit before being turned away, but alas, I did just that.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

Other memories have sparked a few of my own. I was selected to play for Haringey Youth League side and we went up and played against Derby County's equivalent age side, before lunch with th Mayor (paper plates of sausage and chips in a sports hall) befor being taken to see Derby vs West Ham (I think).

In that team (probably, there were a few league rep games which had varying sides) we had Gary Breen and Chris Bart-Williams. Had a few games versus Senrab back then too, who had a number of players who went on to be pros.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Played every lunchtime at school but never got anywhere close to any kind of organised team.

Played pick-up games in parks with mates at uni, then when I got back joined a mixed 5-a-side league. After a few seasons basically playing with other solo joiners, eventually three teams who'd all lost players the previous season merged together, and we kinda went on to build a bit of a dynasty. I think we won something like 15 seasons overall, plus a couple of tournaments. Each season was only 2-3 months long each, mind

I'm also a world and two-time league champion in three-sided football.

Haven't played since the pandemic, the longest I've gone without playing since I started uni. Have noticed I already talk about my playing in the past tense

Hope I pull my finger out and play a few more games before I properly finish for good, but it's that shitty cycle of not playing because I'm not fit enough, and then not being fit enough because I'm not playing.

<edit: oh, positions. Ostensibly left-back/left wing, but I mean, it's 5-a-side, plus my level is relatively the same wherever you put me, so basically "everywhere" at one point or another (and would usually start in goal until we got a dedicated 'keeper).>

 

[Sasaferrato]

Football. That bloody game we were forced to play when the hockey pitches were unplayable.

I played at right back, and my footballing nickname was 'piranha'. My theme song was 'You'll never walk again'.

It generally only took my first tackle to move play to the left side of the pitch.

I was never sent off because that would have been giving me what I wanted.

In the staff/pupils football match I brought the headmaster down so hard that he cracked a rib.

I played in goal at hockey, and took those skills to football, where they served me well.

Vicious bastard? Yes, but only at football and judo.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

This thread has bought on a wave of nostalgia and a bit of sadness too. Can remember Wednesdays at work and it was in the back of my mind all day looking forward to the game that night. We would be texting each other all day about tactics etc. it was very competitive. But just full stop great. The outfit ran four leagues so you were always matched like for like, always stood a chance. Good days and I miss them.

Yeah, same here. Sometimes I would be basking in glory for days after if I'd played really well or other times it would be a downer that I wanted to get back out there and rectify as soon as possible. Oddly, I used to love it most on rainy winter nights, perhaps because it kept the numbers down on our easycome-easygo approach and made it more like kickabouts when we were kids.

Also performed a useful function in stopping me hitting the beer straight after work. Had to wait until I'd got home at half eight and probably enjoyed it more as a result.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

Just remember that we won a charity tournament at Highbury with our pub team against loads of decent semi-pro teams....a few our mates were good semi-pros too, but we at least half of our squad wasn't. The night out that followed was

 

[tonysingh]

Chatham Town run a Walking Football team. I'm thinking about giving it a go once my cardiac issues get sorted. Might prove a handy distraction. That's if i'm old enough....

 

[starfish]

Rugby was my game growing up but i played for my Boys Brigade team for a bit during the teachers industrial action of 84-86 which stopped school sports. We were a decent team, probably second best in South Glasgow, i played right back. We only lost a couple of games one season, league & a cup final against the same BB that a lot of my school mates played for.

 

[Gromit]

Heath Park United
Cardiff Combination Football League
Division 3 winners 96/97
Player / Treasurer

Civil Service Department (not saying which one) Football Team
Player / Manager

Positions played:
Striker
Wing back
Right back
Goalkeeper

Never had a trial.

 

[pbsmooth]

I'm David Beckham.

 

[JimW]

We played an international match or two against the Chinese university team in my year abroad, proud to say we did Europe and Africa proud by winning two and drawing one of a three match series despite them playing together regularly and us being a scratch side from the foreign students' dorm.
Star player was an amazing Ghanaian lad called Albert who was studying astrophysics in Chinese!

 

[Jimmy Don't]

I'm David Beckham.

What the odds! So is my wife!

 

[pbsmooth]

What the odds! So is my wife!

Yes, I wear her dresses!

Anyway...

 

[editor]

I played for the same team as Gareth Bale. FACT!

*although there was, admittedly, several decades between our appearances.

ADDITIONAL FACT!

My school was also the largest in Wales, the largest in Britain and the second largest in Europe (according to the school's last Estyn report) with 2400 pupils

Whitchurch High School

Infobox UK school name = Whitchurch High School size = latitude = 51.51339 longitude = 3.22323 dms = dms motto = motto pl = established = approx = closed = c approx = type = religion = president = head label = Headteacher head = r head label = r…

en-academic.com

 

[pbsmooth]

I played 11-a-side most weekends from primary school age until my late teens. played against a few players who went on to become pros, which is nice to remember. the main difference when you were younger tended to be simply that the best players were bigger and could kick the ball a long way! but that was of course to our untrained eye.

then played 5-a-side throughout my 20s and 30s, sometimes twice a week. no wonder you get fat when you get older and stop doing things like this...
that being said, I can remember meeting in the pub and having drinks before we played. which I just couldn't fathom being able to do now.

dipped in and out of 11-a-side on weekends as I got older. enjoyment always tempered every time you played a side who were just dirty/arseholes for no reason. it's not the premier league, lads, what's the point. also the fact it would knock out a whole day and stop you drinking the night before (maybe) and give you a hangover the next day, starts to become less and less attractive as you get older.

don't really miss it. turning up and playing the odd game with crap players and getting spanked puts pay to that. but great times to look back on.

edit - have also broken bones and torn ligaments. so my knees/ankles/legs/lower body is definitely a bit worse for wear. will probably fuck me over in another 10 years.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

I played for the same team as Gareth Bale. FACT!

*although there was, admittedly, several decades between our appearances.

Replace Gareth Bale with Kieffer Moore and add another decade or so and I've got another FACT to go with my primary school being the second biggest in Devon!

Replace Kieffer Moore with Gareth Bale and Wales might have qualified for the Euros. THEORY!

 

[Sasaferrato]

We played an international match or two against the Chinese university team in my year abroad, proud to say we did Europe and Africa proud by winning two and drawing one of a three match series despite them playing together regularly and us being a scratch side from the foreign students' dorm.
Star player was an amazing Ghanaian lad called Albert who was studying astrophysics in Chinese!