Rivals

MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula 1 drivers, Lewis Hamilton & Nico Rosberg, are great rivals off the track as well as on it. Watch this behind the scenes video as Lewis and Nico work to stay ahead of their closest competition, whatever the situation!

Winter Olympics Live Streaming

I'm quite excited by the Winter Olympics - the summer games always remind me of things I might have been able to do if I was younger, fitter, faster and considerably less lazy, but the winter games always show me things I could NEVER do - launching myself off a hillside while strapped to two planks of wood, hurtling down a hillside while strapped to two planks of wood, flying round an ice rink with two sharpened blades attached to my feet...and so on...

I'm looking forward to following the Winter Olympics on ESPN's Winter X Games channel, which includes both recorded interviews and live streaming events with some of the biggest names in winter sports.

Friday Ten: Ten People Who Aren't Coming To My Birthday Party Tomorrow

1: Osama Bin Laden

2: Barack Obama

3: Kylie Minogue

4: John Terry

5: David Cameron

6: Courtney Love

7: Paul McCartney

8: Lewis Hamilton

9: Tiger Woods

10: Cheryl Cole

Good Morning

Up at 8am on a Sunday morning - this had better be worth it....

Running Man

A colleague and friend of mine has done what I consider to be a very brave, and very foolish, thing - he's signed up for next year's Edinburgh marathon.

I know for a fact that I couldn't run a marathon - my knees are agony after an hour of football, never mind four or more hours of running on concrete.

And there's no way I could be bothered to train for a marathon - I'm just too damned lazy.

Please head across to Kevin's blog and show your support for his madness....

Mighty Mole

I've recently started playing golf (very badly), and somehow don't think my current level of ability would cope with this hole, the 19th at Legends Golf & Safari Resort in South Africa.

It's an 850-yard hole that incorporates a half-mile drop from tee to pin - and you need a helicopter to get between the two.

Chess With The Presidents

Jaggy was right - the mystery celebrity in the previous post was Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne.

I've said before that Gazza is amongst my favourite footballers of all time, and that Brian Laudrup is the only player I've seen in a Rangers shirt who would be his equal.

But he's clearly a serious ill man with myriad problems that don't have an easy solution. Problems that have been exacerbated by fame and fortune from a young age and by a series of hangers-on who have indulged his every whim and ridden the gravy train until it was so far off the rails as to be insalvageable.

My favourite part of the article from the previous post is this section:

"I rang my dad and said, "Get your stuff ready. Me and you are going to Madison Square Garden to play chess against President Bush and President Clinton." God knows what I was going on about — I didn't even have a chess board."

Aye Gazza, that was the fatal flaw in your plan to play Presidents Bush and Clinton at chess in Madison Square Garden - the lack of a board....

Tag-A-Thon

It's been a while since anyone on the worldwide interweb decided I was worthy of tagging, so thanks to Billy The Kid for this one, for which he was tagged by Rantz.

And this one's simple - five things about me.

1. I have no middle name. Mither never liked the fact that hers was her mother's maiden name, which isn't a standard girly-type name, and so decided that Baby Brother and I wouldn't have middle names. Which means that my real name has, in total, seven letters.

2. I've visited 21 of the world's countries (24 if you count England, Scotland, Norn Iron and Eire as separate nations). My first foreign trip was an exchange trip to Germany with the school in 1994, which also took me to Belgium and the Netherlands, sailing into Zeebrugge and out of Rotterdam.

3. The most recent new addition to the list above is Norway, which I visited with work in August. Stavanger reminded me of the town from The Goonies, albeit with more drunk Norwegians and £9 pints.

4. My first football match was Brechin City v Rangers for Dougie Scott's testimonial match in 1991. If memory serves correctly (and it probably doesn't) Brechin won 6-4. Ian Durrant scored a penalty for Rangers as he made his slow comeback from his horrific injury.

5. If I could only watch one DVD on repeat for eternity, I'd probably pick the first disc from the Fawlty Towers box set. Familiarity should really breed contempt, but not in this case. Communication Problems is actually funnier with every subsequent viewing.

Now, who to tag? Like Billy, I'll pick three of my favourite Scottish bloggers - The Tomahawk Kid, Big Rab and Mike Smith from Auld Reekie Rants.

Season 2008/2009: Match 12: Montrose v Stenhousemuir

Last week, I wrote that a week is a long time in football. Today, that proved to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Last week, Montrose, under the guidance of new caretaker-player-manager David Hannah, defeated Huntly by two goals to march onwards in the Scottish Cup (sorry, Homecoming Scottish Cup).

But today, they were ripped apart by league leaders Stenhousemuir, who took the lead after only three minutes thanks to a mistake from the new gaffer.

Montrose were turgid and lacking in ideas throughout, their ineptitude matched only by that of referee Garry Hilland. His greatest error was allowing Stenny's second goal, scored almost on the stroke of half time time, to stand, despite a blatant foul on Montrose goalkeeper Greg Kelly.

The visitors killed the tie off in the second half, Kelly himself at fault when he failed to hold a long ball into the box.

Montrose seemed unsuited to Hannah's 3-5-2 formation, especially with Jamie Buchan pushed into a holding midfield role, leaving Hannah himself at centre back. He no longer has the pace to match the pacey young strikers he faces week in, week out in Division Three, and was regularly found lacking when challenged one-on-one.

Hopefully this week's result was a minor blip, and Montrose can resurrect their promotion push in Annan next week.

Random Mutterings

Note to McDonald's - I don't know what an M Burger is, but the stupid advert you're showing roughly seventeen times a second is enough to put me off buying one.

I'm pretty sure my right leg is going to fall off before I hit 30. A baldy-headed twat knackered it two minutes into a "friendly" football match last week, and it hasn't been the same since. There may be trouble ahead.

The first five tracks of the new Oasis album are pretty good, but there's a dramatic tail-off until Liam's final track, Soldier On. Better than Heathen Chemistry and Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, but not up there with their greatest work, not by a long chalk.

Driving to work sucks ass. I've been forced to this week because of the strikes affecting Scotland's railways. I miss reading my book and relaxing on the train to work, especially as the book I'm reading, The Sum of All Fears, is getting REALLY interesting.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People isn't a great movie. Not horrific, but by no means great. It has its occasional funny moments, but they're few and far between. But any movie that boasts Megan Fox in her underwear can't be all bad.

Think that pretty much sums up the contents of my head at the moment. Roll on Scotland v Norway tomorrow.

In Action

I've been a bit lax in contributing to the Blogosphere over the past few days (weeks...months...), but my excuse since Saturday comes in the form of my first game of 11-a-side football in a few years, something I mentioned recently.

Though I drag my sorry carcass around the five-a-side pitches of Aberdeen twice a week, it's been a few years since I donned the boots and thumped around a proper grass pitch.

Well, that changed on Saturday when a team formed from the male employees of my company took on a former employee and his old school friends.

There was a fair gulf in class - the opposition counted amongst their number several players who play at amateur and junior level, while our side included one or two players who had never played in a full-size football match before.

Unsurprisingly, we were beaten, and unsurprisingly the defeat was fairly comprehensive, finishing 7-1 to the younger, fitter side.

But we gave a good account of ourselves and in truth the scoreline wasn't a fair reflection of the match, especially as our first-choice goalkeeper was injured making a penalty save in the 15th minute.

Lest anyone doubt my abilities as a combative striker, here I am in full flight, the massed ranks of the opposition attempting to prevent me scoring (an objective they succeeded in achieving....)

(Photograph courtesy of Cedric Raguenaud)

Another Sports Day

Writing about sports day yesterday got me thinking again about the sports days I took part in as a boy.

As I mentioned previously, I was, for a few of my years, a half-decent sprinter, winning the McGregor Cup as Senior Boys' 100m champion in both of my final two years at school.

Unfortunately, this success didn't translate to other events, and I was never crowned overall champion, although Baby Brother achieved that feat a few years later.

My inability to convert my sprinting prowess to other events reached its peak when I was around 14. At the end of each school sports day, the final event was always the boys' open 1500m race, an event in which every boy in the school was entitled to compete, regardless of age.

Entering the event as a fresh-faced 14-year-old, I had no grasp of the concept of pacing myself. If I did something, I did it flat out, as befitted a sprinter.

Lining up alongside my fellow male pupils, I was one of the younger runners. But, as the gun signalled the start of the race, I flew out in front of the pack, determined to rattle around the track as quickly as possible.

For the watching crowd, comprising every other pupil in the school, all of the teachers and a few bored parents, it must have been some sight. By the end of the first lap, I was 200 metres in front of my nearest challenger, a senior pupil four years older and considerably fitter than I was.

As I crossed the line at the end of the first of my three laps, I received some sterling advice from those congregated at the line:

"Slow down!"

"You're running too fast!"

"Move into the inside lane!"

True enough, by the midway point of the second lap, my lungs and legs were burning, and the runners behind me were closing in fast. By the end of that lap I was second.

Midway through the third lap, I thought I was going to die, my legs barely willing to carry me any further, my heart dancing to its own private hardcore rave compilation and my lungs wondering what they'd done to deserve the punishment I was inflicting upon them.

Finally, desperately, I stumbled over the finish line in seventh place, staggered to a nearby grassy bank and collapsed.

The world was spinning and I could see spots flashing wildly in front of my eyes. It took me a good 10 minutes to summon the energy to stand up.

The lesson I've learned from that race?

If nature had intended me to travel 1500 metres in one go, he'd have given me wheels instead of legs.

Sports Day

Today, as I made my way to the train station, there was a chill in the air, but it was a chill that suggested that another day of warm sunshine beckoned.

Mornings like that, when the smell of cut grass hangs in air alongside the morning mist, always remind of sports day at high school.

I'm not sure if this situation was replicated at other schools, but at the high school I attended, there were two sports days - an individual sports day and a team sports day.

At the first, the individual sports day, each competitor was out for personal glory, taking part in as many events as he or she saw fit, the person with the most points at the end of the day winning the individual sports trophy for that year.

A week later, the official school sports took place, with the school's three houses competing against each other for the collective bragging rights. And the events couldn't be rigged - no single competitor was allowed to compete in more than two individual events plus the relay race.

In those days, I was a fairly formidable sprinter, at least within the context of our school. And from first year onwards, it became apparent that taking part in the individual sports day was a great way of missing a day's lessons.

I competed every year from first until sixth year, even in the years when Standard Grades and Highers were doing their damndest to suck the will to live from all who cowered in their shadows.

It was a fairly easy decision - a day in a stuffy classroom with algebra, iambic pentameter and the farming habits of Amazon indians, or a day spent running around in the sun.

Those who participated in the individual sports day fell broadly into three camps:

A) The Competitors. These were the individuals who saw, in sports day, a chance to bag some glory through lifting a silver trophy at that year's prize-giving ceremony, their parents beaming happily from the audience. Their ambition would know no bounds - warm-up exercises, knee braces and isotonic sports drinks were all employed as they attempted to get their grubby paws on a trophy.

B) The Skivers: These people were at sports day simply as a way of avoiding the book-based horror within the school's walls. What they lacked in physical prowess and athletic endeavour, they made up for in journies to the sweetie machines or escape bids to smoke a fly fag around the back of the science block.

C) The Complete Bampots: Even at the age of 13, there are some people you can pick out as being a bit special. They may not have a brain cell to call their own, but when they're 6'2" of rippling muscle before most of their classmates' balls have dropped, you know it's best not to point out their shortcomings.

I was somewhere between groups A and B: I turned up half expecting to do well, then remembered that I can't run for more than 200 metres without coughing up semi-vital internal organs.

But, from the age of about 15, I was almost unbeatable over 100m, when limiting the competition solely to other pupils at my school. I say almost, because there is always one....

....Jimmy (I've changed his name to avoid any future repercussions) was a machine. He didn't so much fit into group C as define it. There are people you describe as solid who don't deserve the accolade. Jimmy wasn't one of them.

I'd encountered him on a running track once before, during a relay race. My team was doing well, and I was leading from the front on the final leg.

Then I heard Jimmy.

That's right, I heard him coming.

Snorting like a charging bull, he was closing the gap on me, his arms and legs seemingly replaced by steam engine pistons.

And, in a blur of thunderous gristle, he was past me and through the line.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jimmy, not renowned for his ability to work with calculus, is now in the army. Never mind tanks and guns - just set Jimmy at those Iraqi insurgents. He'll take down the whole of Basra in a day.

Of Hiccups, Monster Bobs and Visas

The dust is finally settling on a fairly hectic weekend and I'm almost able to keep my eyes open long enough to post, so I'll try to collect my thoughts.

Friday's working day culminated in a leaving night for a fellow employee, and the drink was flowing freely at the start of the evening. My recollections of events are hazy, but I'm told that my Elvis impersonation kept my colleagues amused.

Thankfully, I had the sense to bail out before things got too messy, and instead subjected the passengers on the Aberdeen to Montrose train to a spectacular bout of hiccups that lasted for the duration of the journey. These hiccups were more like sonic booms, and were so loud that I could hear them above Definitely Maybe cranked up full blast on the Magic Tune Box.

Having arrived in Montrose, I decided that food was required, and treated myself to a pizza. The first bite removed removed several layers off the interior lining of my mouth, and in shock I managed to spill molten cheese on both my hands. All in all, a fairly eventful post-pub meal.

After staggering from the pizza shop to Dungroanin', I managed to scare Pepper, Mrs Wife's rabbit, half to death, then retreated to bed.

Unfortunately, Saturday dawned for me at the early hour of 7.30am. Unable to get back to sleep, I settled on the couch, wrapped in a fake fur throw, and allowed my hangover to build up a head of steam.

What I found out later in the day was that a combination of hail, snow, horizontal rain and howling winds, mixed with the standard of football offered up in an end-of-season Angus derby, is enough to shift even the most stubborn of hangovers.

Though the match wasn't dire, the standard of refereeing, in a league renowned for atrocious officials, was honking, and the man in black's performance was enough in itself to deny Montrose a confirmed play-off spot. For a week at least.

And so Saturday night started with me shivering, attempting to restore my core body temperature to something above freezing and preparing for a second consecutive night on the lash.

I believe a good time was had by all, with most of the assembled crowd enjoying their first visit to Roo's Leap. This vast amount of food was washed down with a few civilised drinks....

....Which doesn't really explain how I ended up finally going to bed at 6am, having woken the whole house with an impromptu didgeridoo solo.

My body clock must still be on British Winter Time, because I awoke at 8.30am, unable to do anything but doze fitfully until my lift to Dundee arrived. Why Dundee? To take in the Dundee United v Rangers SPL match, one of the more entertaining games I've been to this season, albeit one in which the final result left a lot to be desired. But no team can expect to go behind three times and still win a match.

A long day at work on Monday was followed by a trip north to Ellon, where Mrs Wife acquired her second rabbit, a bouncing boy now known as Dylan (in tribute to Robert Zimmerman, not The Magic Roundabout).

Introducing Dylan and Pepper has been a high-tension affair. Pepper is no longer in possession of her womanly organs, but Dylan still has a full set of boy bits, and he's eager to use them. So far, as Pepper has investigated this newcomer, she's smacked him around the nose a few times and attempted to give him a warning nibble on the nose. But Dylan seems to take this as foreplay, so there may be testing times ahead.

Yesterday, the 28th anniversary of my arrival on this planet, saw Mrs Wife and I venture south to Edinburgh, with the intention of collecting our Chinese visas. Unfortunately, the Chinese Consulate is an awkward beast, and no amount of discussion or offers of cash would tempt them to process the application in a single day. Which means that I'll have to make a return journey next week.

So, a busy weekend means I'm pretty shattered and looking forward to a few evenings of realxing on the sofa to recuperate.

I must be getting old.

Alaska Here I Come

I've yet to break the news to Mrs Wife, but it seems I might be otherwise engaged on the occasion of her 29th birthday.

Birthdays - you get one every year, and once the 21st one is past, they're barely worth celebrating any more.

Therefore, when Mrs Wife completes her 29th trip around the sun, I may be far away from the Scottish homestead, taking my sporting endeavours to a brand new audience.

The occasion?

The ninth World Beard and Moustache Championships.

Unfortunately, a combination of style and inability has restricted my beard and moustache-growing endeavours up until now. But I think that with almost 14 months' notice, I could whip my whiskers into a suitably eye-catching style in an effort to capture the title for the United Kingdom.

I'm open to suggestions - should I be rocking the wild untamed cave man look for the World Championships, or instead spend some time with a tub of warm moustache wax as I twist the flowing locks sprouting from my nose into a fantastic handlebar effort? I'm willing to accept guidance from my readers as to the direction my face fuzz should take.

Though I think some of my fellow competitors will take some beating....

Eight More Things About Me

My favourite Fred Astaire-loving wiseass Jooette has tagged me with the Eight Fascinating Facts meme.

I've actually done this one before, but what's another eight facts between friends? So here are facts nine to 16:

1: The first football match I ever attended was a friendly between Brechin City and Rangers in 1990 or 1991 for Dougie Scott's testimonial. I think the score was 6-4 to Brechin. Ian Durrant scored a penalty and Mark Walters, Terry Hurlock and Colin Scott all played for Rangers.

2: I have eight Standard Grades, seven Highers, two Certificates of Sixth Year Studies and a Bachelor's degree in Journalism. Oh, and National Certificates in Art, Music and Keyboard Skills.

3: I've scored two goals in the Aberdeen Oil League this season. Our team hasn't won a match yet.

4: I collect Hurricane cocktail glasses from Hard Rock Cafes around the world. So far, my collection covers Rome, Sydney, Edinburgh, Madrid, Melbourne, Singapore, New York, Cancun, Paris, Kuala Sumper, Surfer's Paradise and Hollywood.

5: Wales is the only country in the British Isles that I've never been to. For some reason, it just doesn't appeal.

6: The first dance at my wedding was Here, There and Everywhere by The Beatles.

7: This year, I'm spending Xmas with Mrs Wife's parents for the first time before jetting off to Brussels for New Year.

8: I attended four different Primary Schools and one High School as a boy. My first school had several hundred pupils, my second had nine when I started and seven when I left, my third had three when I started and five when I left, and my fourth had 13 when I started and 11 when I left.

So, weren't those facts just scintillatingly exciting? I'm meant to tag eight more bloggers to play along, but I think everyone should play if they want to and ignore it if they don't.

Commonwealth Games

With Glasgow having been announced as the host city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the competition itineraray has been published:

OPENING CEREMONY: The Commonwealth flame will be ignited by a petrol bomb thrown into the arena by a native of the Easterhouse area of the city, wearing the traditional costume of balaclava and shell suit.

THE EVENTS: Glasgae's previous competitors have not been particularly successful. In order to redress the balance some of the events have been altered slightly to the advantage of the local athletes...

100 METRES SPRINT: Competitors will have to hold a video recorder and a microwave oven (one under each arm) and on the sound of a starting pistol a police dog will be released 10 metres behind the athletes.

110 METRES HURDLES: As above but with added obstacles, ie car bonnets, hedges, gardens, fences, walls etc.

HAMMER: The competitors will be allowed to make a choice of hammer (claw, sledge, etc.). The winner will be the one who can cause the most grievous bodily harm to members of the public within their allotted time.

WEIGHTLIFTING: From a standing position, competitors will have various electronic goods placed in their arms. In order to complete a lift, these must then be taken through the shop door and placed in a mate's van.

FENCING: Entrants will be asked to dispose of as much stolen jewellery as possible within five minutes.

SHOOTING: A series of targets will be set up to establish the competitor's ability over a range of disciplines. The targets to be as follows:- 1 - A moving police van. 2 - A Post Office clerk. 3 - A bank teller or Securicor driver. 4 - Their next door neighbour's youngest child. NB - This target to be followed by the ritual cry of 'I thought he was a Bizzy' or 'He pulled a knife on me'.

BOXING: Entry to be restricted to husband and wife teams. Competition will take place on every Friday and Saturday night of the games.The husband will be given 15 pints of Stella, and the wife will be told not to make him any tea when he gets home. The bout will then commence.

CYCLING TIME TRIALS: Competitors will be asked to break into the Glasgae University bike shed and take an expensive mountain bike, owned by some mummy's boy from the country on his first trip away from home. Against the clock.

CYCLING PURSUIT: As above, however this time the break-in must occur at a police station and must be witnessed by an officer.

TIME TRIAL: The competitor who can waste the most of the court's valuable time before being found guilty will be adjudged the winner.

MODERN PENTATHLON: Amended to include mugging, breaking & entering, flashing, joyriding and arson.

THE MARATHON: A safe route has yet to be decided, but the competitors will be issued with sharp sticks and bags with which to pick up dog shit, crisp packets and used hypodermic syringes on their way round.

MEN'S 50Km WALK:
Q - Why does the Clyde run through Glasgae? A - Because if it walked it would get mugged.
Therefore for safety reasons this event has been cancelled.

RELAY: Each of four competitors to remove an appliance of their choice from a house in Kilbride and get it back to Glasgae using at least four different stolen cars.

ARCHERY: Each competitor will be given three needles, the winner will be the person who gets nearest to three different main veins in their own body.

DISCUS: Will be decided by which contestant can get a hubcap off a car and throw it to his mate the fastest.

In addition the following 'exhibition event' designed at promoting the local culture will be introduced:

PILLOW EATING: The contestant who can get the most pillow in their mouth after their 18 stone cellmate takes a shine to them will be adjudged the winner.

Fever Pitch

My inauspicious football career lurched onwards yesterday evening in my company's second match in the Aberdeen Oil League.

A 17-4 defeat obviously isn't anyone's result of choice. And coming on the back of a 12-2 loss, things aren't looking too bright early on.

But I suppose we need to take into account a number of factors: that as a small publishing company, we have only a squad of around 11 players to choose from, whereas our opponents last night were from a multnational oilfield operator, whose Aberdeen offices alone must contain hundreds of employees. That as a team, we'd never played together prior to our first warm-up match a month ago, and that we've never yet fielded a full-strength team.

So last night's performance, whilst tough to take, was an important step forwards. We scored more goals than in any previous match, with four different players hitting the net.

However, these goals came at a price. My first touch of the match saw me turn my marker, and my second saw me lash a shot at goal. But the marker I'd just turned smashed his foot into mine at high speed. My big toe on my left foot is now a lurid shade of purple and has been in agony since it received that kick. And my knee sports a beauty of a bruise sustained in the final minutes as we desperately chased further goals.

So now, to end this post, a question: is there an easy way to tell if your toe is broken?

Escape To Victory

An interesting article on The Times website today on some homeless footballers who have gone AWOL:

African participation in the Homeless World Cup, a football tournament designed to improve the confidence of former vagrants, was under review last night after 15 players went on the run at the finals in Denmark.

The competition’s aim — to offer a golden opportunity for homeless people to change their lives — was taken literally by seven players from Burundi, four from Liberia, three from Cameroon and one from Afghanistan.

Danish police were looking for the footballers last night but admitted that they could easily have travelled further afield in the Schengen system of 15 “borderless” EU countries, which do not require visitors to show passports. The players’ visas expired on Monday after the tournament ended.

Kay Byles, a spokeswoman for the Scottish-based Homeless World Cup Foundation, said that it was the first of the annual contests — which started in 2002 — to experience runaways. Arrangements for next year’s cup in Melbourne would be reviewed, she said.

Is it just me, or does the concept of the Homeless World Cup seem a little naive?

You take 500 homeless people, many of them from third world nations, to Denmark and expect them all to play in the tournament before returning home.

Why would homeless people from Cameroon, Liberia, Afghanistan or Burundi want to return home to their own countries when faced with a golden opportunity to start afresh in Denmark?

True, they will still be homeless in Europe, and are effectively in the country illegally. But I think I'd sooner take my chances on the streets of Copenhagen than on those of Yaounde, Monrovia or Kabul.

And, instead of flying homeless people around the world to play football, couldn't the organisers make better use of their time and money by finding them somewhere to live in their home countries, and by giving them training or finding them jobs?

By the by, Scotland won the tournament, defeating Poland 9-3 in the final. Let the record show that Scotland won the World Cup in 2007, and that England havne't won it for more than 40 years.

Fives Alive

Last night, I played my first "competitive" game of football in over a year, when I turned out for my employer's five-a-side team.

By competitive, I mean a match that wasn't played between groups of friends or fellow employees.

Our opponents last night were a team of men in their late teens, who it immediately became apparent have more opportunity to hone their fitness levels than we do. The average age of our side was probably somewhere in the 30s.

And it showed early on, as we trailed 4-1 at half time, and also suffered an injury to one of our players in the opening ten minutes, leaving us with only one substitute for the rest of the match.

Nonetheless, we showed an increased vigour in the opening spell of the second half, bringing the score back to a respectable 4-4. But fatigue took its toll. A final score of 11-6 doesn't really tell the whole story, as there was definitely not a five-goal gulf in class between the teams. In fact, on another day, with passes finding their intended targets and shots flying into the corners of the goal instead of hitting the posts, we'd have beaten them.

As for my performance, it wasn't absolutely dreadful, but it was far from magical. I'd forgotten the difference between a "friendly" kick around and competitive league match, even at five-a-side level. There is no respite from the action, no possibility of drifting out of the match for a few minutes as you attempt to regain your puff.

I hit a few shots wide, swiped wildly at a couple of balls, scored a couple of goals and missed a penalty. Which is probably a fairly accurate description of my contribution to football over the past 20 years or so.