Happiness is playing football badly in your 30s
These are the days of our lives
Tactically unaware that there’s any other option than this, I’m chasing the ball like a blinkered greyhound chases the rabbit, stalking a friend-of-a-former colleague up the left-wing of a 4G pitch, frantically screaming “behind if you need! Behind If You Need! BEHIND. IF. YOU. NEED!”
But they never need.
Except this time, the ball pops up from behind this guy (Geoff?), boings out from between his legs like he’s been sitting on it under water. Whether by accident or design, it bounces, rolls and stops dead, inviting me to bend it first-time into the top corner. I shut my eyes (in hindsight, a bad idea) and see a YouTube highlights reel of football’s greatest thwackers –Gerrard, Sneijder, Scholes– smashing it into the top bin again and again and again. I rifle it over the cage and out for a throw-in. We’re 10-2 down, fighting for mid-table and my search for a first goal in three seasons goes on. Half the team are ringers meaning we’re splitting the costs between three of us and the defeat will cost me about £25.
This is, without a doubt, the single best thing in my life.
****
Age is a funny thing in football. Today, more and more players seem to carry on well into their late thirties, and yet players seemingly start, and often peak, earlier and earlier. It used to be said that late twenties were a player’s prime years, but now some are done and dusted by then, destined for the scrap heap or West Ham.
To hear commentators speak about some 30-year-olds, you’d think they were perusing the veterinary ward of the Grand National, sizing up which crippled winger should be next off to the glue factory. It’s a hard, confusing listen for a 34-year-old playing the best football of his life.
Admittedly, it’s been a relatively short career. Playing football when you’re not very good quickly gets boring/deeply traumatising when you’re young, so, sick of being screamed at by bigger boys, I retired age 11. I briefly returned in my early twenties, but it’s only been in the last few years I’ve made the astroturfs of North East London my home again.
In a way, it’s one of my great regrets. I sometimes think I should have been brave enough to find a ragtag group of guys 10 years ago and assemble them like the cast of a 00s screwball comedy. A hilarious mix. One really gifted player, one really old guy, and the rest of us utterly pathetic. Bliss.
But I think you have to be a little bit older to enjoy it for what it is. Playing five- or six-a-side in your late teens and early twenties can be a violent affair. Too many players still haven’t accepted that one thing all men must come to accept: you’re never going to be a footballer. That resentment boils up, it eats at you. Before you know it you’re at Bristol Patchway Goals getting caught on camera grabbing a referee by the throat. That’s a one-game ban, no question. You don’t need that.
In your thirties you can enjoy it for what it is. The pure, white knuckle exhilaration of something mildly competitive, the chance of glory, every game like buying a lottery ticket, thinking “today could be the day”.
Edit: After publishing this, I genuinely scored my first goal in three seasons. The above peach. Full disclosure: I tried this again and put it on the roof of the school. I was also sin-binned for a professional foul, during which, the opposition equalised and they went on to win the game. Best day of my life.
Every Wednesday, I step out onto the pitch with a mix of blokes for the best 40 minutes of my week. I’ve no idea what half of them do for work, what their partners are called or where they live. I see these blokes more than I see almost anyone in my life, from my family to my oldest friends. Often we’re joined by a complete stranger, some nutter who sits around waiting to get a text from the League saying some team somewhere needs a man. A bat symbol for people who don’t know at least four other able-bodied men keen for a regular kick about on a Wednesday. That’s how much they love it. That’s how much we love it.
For some teams, it’s clearly all about winning and, don’t get me wrong, I love it when it happens, but for me, it’s about moments. Hard fought draws. The rare wonder goal. A comeback. Even the threat of moments will do. A long ranger that almost came off. A thumbs up after failing to reach a pass I’d have needed 40 more metres of pitch to catch. A respectable but resounding defeat.
I love it. I am bad at it and I love it. I play terribly, the team loses and yet I instantly want to play again. Alas, my hamstrings won’t allow it. Those fragile, fraught things, stretched thin like a gum-blown bubble, could go at any minute. And in a way, I think that’s really the joy. I know some men who have already stopped playing, their knees prematurely fucked or protected for the sad little park runs they prioritise over a chance for real glory. A 5k PB over a mid-table finish at Old Street Moorlands 6-a-Side PlayFootball Premier League? Get a grip, man!
Every week we lumber our rapidly decaying bodies and sore limbs around an astroturf pitch, soaking up every second because we know in our aching bones that we don’t have too many seasons left. Our hammies could go at any minute. We might have to move for work. We’re into extra time, boys*. Behind if you need!
Also, we’re desperately in need of a ringer for tonight. 7.30, near Old Street Station, ideally someone comfortable in goal, but no worries if not. Stick your email in the box and I’ll be in touch.
*to clarify, of playing six-a-side.
Great article. I managed to keep playing 5-a-side very badly until my mid-forties. Keep going for as long as you can. It is ParkRuns (without PBs) for me now.
Brilliant article - need to get the badgers kit dusted off!