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The thing I love about playing sport is that we all play for ‘the moment.’  Whatever sport it is — football, netball, snooker, cricket, golf (technically a hobby as opposed to a sport, but still) — we usually know we’re not brilliant, but we still play, hoping and aiming for ‘the moment.’ 

The moment: the thirty-yard screamer, the three-pointer, the diving catch, the hole-in-one, the double on the black to win.  We play because we all know we have it in ourselves to have a moment of glory.  Every dog has his day, and all that.  This is the only explanation I can think of for people who spend hundreds and thousands of pounds on golf equipment and green fees when they can’t even hit the ball straight.  They hope for the moment.  The applause, the cheers, the high-fives, the celebratory beer afterwards.  It’s why shit people play sport, I’m convinced.

And this brings me on to the subject of me playing football.  A friend says he’s organising a game of football, so I let him know I’m interested in playing.  I can do a half-decent job at centre-back, I said.  (This is not entirely true, but playing at centre half probably involves doing the least running—except goalkeeper, obviously, but more on that later—and, as every knows, you generally put your big ugly donkey at centre half and tell him to kick anything that moves.)  My mate says he’s already sorted for centre backs, so I tell him I played every position in the team for South Normanton Athletic juniors.  I can play anywhere.  Then I start thinking…

I didn’t play in every position because I was good.  I played everywhere because I was so shit I didn’t warrant being chosen in any particular position.  This is not to say my career (span: 1990-94) was a disaster.  Far from it.  My U12s Top Scorer trophy sits proudly between my U11s and U13s Sportsman of the Year trophies (Sportsman of the Year award definition: a consolatory trophy for the shittest player who turns up every week without fail and never moans when he doesn’t play).

I started reminiscing on my own personal highlights package in my head, and decided upon some of my more notable performances in the various positions I played.

Centre half.  I started off as a centre half, but my inherent laziness was a problem.  I recall our manager once pointing out, after the opposition had scored, that I was out of position.  Specifically, I was stood on the halfway line with my hands on my hips.

Full back.  I played right-back for a while until I got sent off twice in the same game.  (It was a friendly, and the opposition manager ordered his team to walk off from “these animals” mid-way through the second half.)  I was tried at left back for a while too.   The highlight was a game against ADASC at Ripley, where I found myself as substitute.  We were all aware of the ability of ADASC’s tricky right winger, but at half-time it was 0-0 and our left back, Gary Forbes, had played a blinder and had their winger in his pocket.  Unfortunately Gary had to come off injured, and I went on to replace him.  Fast forward to the end of the game and their right winger has a hattrick and we’ve lost 3-0.  The moment that sticks in my mind was the build-up to his third goal, where I ran alongside him from the halfway line as he dribbled towards goal, too frightened to tackle him because I knew I’d foul him as he was too quick and I was too shit.  I kept running alongside him until he rounded our goalkeeper and scored.

Goalkeeper.  Towards the end of my career I played one game in goal for South Normanton as both our ‘proper’ keepers were injured.  We lost 3-0 against the team who were top of the league, and I was named our Man of the Match due to a string of outstanding saves.  We were ripped to shreds and should have been absolutely hammered, but I had the game of my life.  I was goalkeeper for our school team a few times, too, until it became apparent that I would make at least one massive fuck-up every game, which would ultimately overshadow my otherwise decent performance.  A bit like David ‘Calamity’ James (below).

 

Midfield.  I have never and never will be good enough or fit enough to play in midfield.  I think I found myself playing left midfield for a while, which seems frankly ridiculous.  My trademark move was to charge down the wing with the ball and ‘cut inside’ onto my right foot, as my left foot was and still is only for standing on and under no circumstances should I attempt to kick a ball with it.

Centre forward.  And now we come to that one season — 91/92 I think — when I could arguably have claimed to not have been completely shit.  The season started badly with a 3-1 away defeat in which I didn’t play.  The next game we were playing at home, and again I found myself as substitute.  With fifteen minutes to go we were drawing 1-1 with Ripley (who we should have been beating) and the manager gambled, throwing me on as a striker.  Fifteen minutes later it’s 6-1 and I’ve scored a hattrick, the third goal of which was a coolly-taken penalty.  I went on what at the time seemed a remarkable scoring streak, scoring in each of the next four or five games.  And we’re not talking about tap-ins against shit teams in 6-1 drubbings, either.  I scored the one and only goal in a game against top of the league Woodhouse Imps (a tap-in, admittedly, but an important one), the last-minute winner away at Ravenshead (picked the ball up on the half-way line, charged down the left wing, cut inside onto my right foot and — aiming for the top right hand corner —slotted the ball in the bottom left corner), and a late equaliser in a 2-2 draw at RJN. 

Then — and I’m not entirely sure what happened — I got dropped.  Now, my memory gets a little hazy here (funny how I remember every goal, but can’t remember being dropped, eh?), but I’m pretty sure I was dropped to the bench for a couple of games.  Despite being top goal scorer at the time, I was still pretty shit so I couldn’t really feel too hard done by.  I think I managed to come off the bench and poach a goal in a 5-1 victory, then found myself back in the starting line-up for the final two games of the season.  Riddings were put to the sword as I scored a hattrick in a 9-1 drubbing, and then I bagged another hattrick (three tap-ins, I seem to recall) against Ripley, the side against which my one and only season of glory started.

By the start of the following season we’d recruited some better players and I was back to being substitute again.  Not that I minded, really, because I’d always have my SNAFC under 12s top scorer trophy and I could always say I scored sixteen goals that season, including (in case you lost count) three hattricks.

So next time I’m asked to play football I should grimace slightly, grumble something about knackering my knees “in my playing days”, and politely decline because I know I’ve had ‘my moment’.  But I won’t.  I’ll say, “I can play anywhere you know,” because I’ll always always always fancy my chances of another glory moment or three.

 

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