It is only reasonable that this column begins with a disclaimer. I’m not a football expert. If there was an opposite of a football aficionado then I would shamefully claim that designation.
It’s curious because for most of my young life I was surrounded by football fanatics. My friends would always allocate at least one day in the week to play football on a pitch that was more “Tee Marie” and powdery dirt than green. I’d usually opt out because, plainly put, I don’t have a sporting bone in my body. In fact, it is my abysmal co-ordination and general lack of athletic ability that gifted my friends with one of the most hilarious spectacles of footballing failures that they’ve ever witnessed before and since.
On a charcoal-tinted day over Balandra beach, “Pompadour,” “Pie,” “Gruff,” “Supers” and other assorted gang names rolled out a flaking, under-inflated football, shoved sticks in the sodden beach sand and decided on an inordinately serious game of beach football. The numbers were short so the teams didn’t have the luxury of benching my gangly, plasticine frame on a fallen coconut tree. Pressed into service, I thought, this awkward, flat-footed clown is going to give these guys a run for their money!