You kicked a ball, in a game?

Following on from Raposa's post there, when was the last time you kicked a ball in a football setting?

I can't remember mine, but if somebody would have told me that that was the final time, I would have been saddened.

I was always out playing football. I wasn't that good, but good enough. I was a goalkeeper and managed to get to be the substitute goalie for Bradford Boys - possibly because they trained at St. George's in Undercliffe, where I was the first team goalie.

Fuck that, I was quite good and I've dive on concrete for fun.

Sunday afternoons on our estate was mad. I lived one street away from the junior/middle school, and one field away from the upper school. Won summer tournaments with Roger Eli who played for Leeds/Burnley, and Liam Robinson who played for Burnley. I won medals they wouldn't have kept.

We'd play football from the end of the Sunday paper rounds, and then when the pubs shut, we'd play the tap-room murderers and run rings round them.

I once tipped a shot over the bar and ended up doing a backwards summersault, and got a round of applause. And I once played in a penalty competition at half-time at Valley Parade, and let all 10 shots in - in front of my Dad and brothers. They let nine in, and their keeper was first choice Bradford boys - guess who missed his penalty. I was small as a teenager, small in mind, lacked confidence. Lived in a world of my own.

I did though, manage to dive with that curled-leg pose and got a round of applause from the Bradford end.

In my mind, I then jumped into the crowd and knacked the ointment, cos I was part of the Anny Road crew (Kopites are gobshites).

I think my final 'match' was somewhere on the outskirts of Ecclesfield in Sheffield for a work game. Managers vs staff. FML.