Left Back … in the
dressing room mostly. Sad to say I never mastered the beautiful game , but
lessons were learned. First things first. I know what a football is. No , not
the often multi coloured sphere you see skidding across your 4K screen . I mean
a proper football.
Stitched together
pieces of brown leather , surrounding an inflated rubber bladder and tied with
a lace…
We called the ball a
Casey and it was a rite of passage to be given one for Christmas along with the
dubbin you had to rub into it to make it waterproof.
The boy with the Casey
could be king for a while...even if he was generally a swot.
That’s how I came to
be playing on that fateful day. It was late summer and school was calling , but
I had my Casey and it was sunny ,and we had the whole recreation ground to kick
around on. It wasn’t long before I was persuaded to join in with a few other
lads , just running and passing. Pretty soon we had enough boys and shirts to
create a makeshift football pitch and two small teams. Somehow , I ended up in
goal , so it was hard to appreciate the dribbling skills of the other boys.
Still it was all very energetic , and things were going rather well until I
heard someone shout “ My Ball !” …
I launched myself out
of the ad hoc goal mouth and across the pitch. Time stood still as I lunged for
the Casey. “ Its MY ball “ I shouted to all and sundry and walked off the
pitch.
The playful kicks and
punches I received in return taught me a lot about fair weather friends,
but I like to think
the other boys learnt something useful about ball control too.
Tony Noon
