my illustrious foop-ball career

This one's for you Ant.

c. Primary School age
Very dedicated foop-baller. Sadly no skill to speak of whatsoever. I went to training on Saturdays and school training. I even went on foop-ball courses at Center Parcs when we went for a holiday.

Highlights of what I like to call the 's***' era include playing one game for my school team. As a substitute defender brought on in the second half. I think they basically felt that a kid shouldn't come to pretty much every training session and never get a game. Nice Mr Cheetham.

The teen years
Gave up on 'playing for teams' or 'training'. Having said that, the presence of indoor nets at youth group and both Saturday and Sunday sports at Boundaries meant that I actually played quite a lot. Around 17 or 18 we started playing kickarounds on Sunday afternoons and I think it was around this time that I wasn't quite as bad as I thought I might have been. True blue.

The growed up phase (to present)
Since returning to the NAG I've been playing fairly regularly on Friday evenings. I also spent half a year playing Wednesday nites too. This is 6 or 7 a side foop-ball you must understand. Which is very different than real foop-ball. For a start I play in trainers. Which are very forgiving. Unlike foop-ball boots which if you get it wrong in you perform 'a slice'. You also cannot 'get away' with toe punts in foop-ball boots. True.

In this era I have made forays back into playing for teams. Starting with a team at GWS. This was a defence position again, but I was not a sub. I also played for my staff team last week in the midfield position. I now have the nickname 'two-goals' Toby. Although I can't see this continuing. We do have some more games lined up.

I'm also hoping to play on another team once a month. Watch this space for more info.


So there.