Football

Football

It used to be football didn't interest me in the slightest. Not at all. Had no team loyalties, no caring about results. Nothing. When I was little I was rubbish at football and was always the last one picked for teams in PE. I was physical and enjoyed athletics. It wasn't I was anti-sport but just not football. My dad wasn't into football at all so there is that influence too. My mum liked it and her brother always used to take me to matches when we visited at Christmas but I found it all a bit confusing and frightening (this is back in the late 70s and early 80s when football crowds had a certain reputation shall we say!). To add to this my parents were from different parts of the country, I was born up north and then we moved to London where I grew up. So I had no real sense of loyalty to a place, or rooting even, some people have that helps them take pride in their local team. All this meant as an adult approaching middle age I was known as the friend that didn't like football.

Then along comes my son. He is 4 years younger than his older sister and most of the “baby friends” we made when we had her were parents of boys (just the way it turned out). This did mean when we went to the park or round for playdates he ended up playing with older boys. He'd play football with them and by the age of 4 or 5 he could pretty much keep up with them. The assorted dads would say “he'd really good at football” and we'd think “that's nice”. Then he started school and would play with his sister's classmates. As he was little and they were big they usually wouldn't pass to him which meant if he wanted the ball he'd have to get it so he got fearless at tackling. Aged 6 he said he'd like to join a football team. Local grassroots sports teams' websites are atrocious. Really hard to find information so we asked about and got recommended one of the various local teams. Went along to one of their drop in sessions and on the first session got asked if he wanted to join the team. Only later did we learn that that team is notoriously hard to get as they only accept good players. That first season he won Player of the Year and was regularly man of the match. The whole thing was a huge baptism of fire for me as I know literally nothing about football or football terminology. Turns out the team has got 2 ex-pro players' sons in and the majority of the other dads used to play at non-league/county level. Then there is me! Still it was fun to live vicariously through my son's exploits. He did a second season with the local team. That season they won every match they played but 1 and that match they drew. At the end of the season he had a trial at the academy of the local Premier League club academy and out of 300 boys at the trial he was the only 1 they invited back. Proud is an understatement. He's now done 2 season with them and is signed for a third. Obviously he is loving it. At the start it was so surreal to go from playing Mile Oak Wanderers to playing Arsenal or Chelsea but he handled it fine. The one thing we do with him and the academy is try to manage expectations. We take each season as it comes and try to tell him it is just for 1 season and not to expect more. Luckily he is a bit of a renaissance man and is top set at most subjects at school plus he plays trumpet and guitar. If the football doesn't work out I'm sure he'll do OK for a job of some sort.

This post was meant to be about how I got into football and ended up being about how awesome my son is. (He is by the way.) Maybe tomorrow's post will have to be about how I started to enjoy going to football matches and appreciating football matches but guess I wanted to show the extent of just how much and quickly football came to MASSIVE part of my life.

This is one of my 100 Days to Offload posts. It is a blogging challenge started by Kev Quirk. Check https://100daystooffload.com and go score the goal of making your own blog.