Broke

Don't worry, the bankroll's fine, it's my body I refer to!

A severe lack of most things even vaguely physically strenuous over the last best part of a decade really did come back and fuck me today. It felt like such a good idea as well as I finally got round to doing something I have wanted to do ever since I got back to Brum.... I signed up with a football team.

As I turned up at the park today for my first training session with the team I fully expected to pick up where I left off five years ago when I left my old Sunday league team to 'go to University'. But I was in for a big disappointment. Today I waved goodbye to the days where I could seemingly run forever without ever breaking sweat, muscles or bones and panted a big 'hello' to creaky bones, muscles and sweat. Seriously, I can't believe how unfit I have become. I once beat everyone in my year at the bleep test ffs, how quickly lungs forget...

Two minutes in, I was gone. I'd already rushed off twice for gulps of water, Lucozade and oxygen before I half-heartedly (the half that'd sensibly packed in at this point) went in for a 50/50 challenge with their fifteen stone striker. I lost fairly comprehensively and was down on my arse as my right knee felt the full force of Robbie Coltrane's size-12 Pumas. Yep, after just two minutes of the first half, I was off the pitch for the third time. The looks of disappointment from my team mates were perfectly just in my opinion, though I thought the sniggers that rippled around the park were a little unnecessary. If equally just.

When I finally came back on, I asked if I could go in goal for a bit to rest my knee. I let three past me in as many minutes and was swiftly replaced.

Truth be told, as the game went on, I did get better. I made one great goal line block early in the first half (mainly because I was sprawled across it gasping for air at the time) which got me a hard slap on the back and a whack in the arm from a couple of guys (at least one of them was congratulatory, I'm sure). But there's no doubt that I was by far the unfittest and most out of practice 'player' on the pitch. It was embarrassing at times. I have only ever once seen a football player cover less distance in a game than I did today*.

It was absolutely pissing it down in the second half so we decided to cut the game short with a 'next three goals wins'. A few of their players were a bit pissed off by this point and wanted to make it a next goal winner but first to three was the decision, much to their annoyance. It was no coincidence, I suppose, that we went two goals up veryquickly. It all looked over so our skipper sent me up front to finish them off. Needless to say, four golden chances, at least fifteen minutes and a good 3mm of rain later, it was still 2-0. So we called it a day. It's fair to say that I was not the most popular player on the pitch:

"Oi, Curly (an amazing bit of obs. com. referring to the current state of my hair. Why the fucker isn't wowing the crowds of Edinburgh at the moment, I don't know...), my dinner's going cold because of you."

"Yeah, soz, mate."

"Fucking Cornish pasty and chips, as well," he added as he turned to an equally peeved and genuinely sympathetic team mate. The team mate said nothing, but gave that unmistakable look that effectively said, "I know what you're saying mate, that curly-haired cunt right there is a right useless cunt." I'm pretty sure that was the jist of what he was thinking at that very moment. And he spoke for every rain-drenched fucker there. Including me.

It's about four hours later now and I currently feel that there is about a 50% chance of me surviving the night - a vast improvement on an earlier estimate. Worryingly though, I have won more than my fair share of races recently (ignoring the pre-game shuttles earlier) so I'm due a loss at some point... So, as tired as I am, I guess I'd better stay awake long enough for that 50% to become at least 80%. I haven't been losing many 80/20s to be fair...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3105322
... okay, let's try 90%.

* Emile Heskey - 13 yards, Birmingham vs Arsenal, Summer 2005. He was offside.