MY SUMMER OF FOOTBALL

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