Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Who's still playing?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Who's still playing?

    Last night I ran out in an 8 v 8 pick-up game for Over 30s at my local club. It was my first game for a year - last time out I got sandwiched between two bulky defenders going for a ball I should have left well alone, put my back out, and couldn't move for a week. I vowed that was it. But, you know, that was a year ago and I've forgotten all about that pain.

    Main thing, I got through the game unscathed. It also got me wondering if, just short of my 56th. birthday, what kind of an injury it will take to stop me playing for good. Part of me would be all for collapsing and dying out there on the pitch as the best way to go. I loved every minute of last night's game. It never gets old, unlike my knees, though they're still holding out despite a bout of arthritis a couple of years back that seems to have been submerged for now.

    I know that RobW still plays indoor football. It's been a while, I think, since we had a round-up - who's still in action, and what do you get out of it?

    #2
    Have you finally hung up your whistle?

    Comment


      #3
      Wish I still was, gave up six years ago at 51. Work and family commitments meant that we couldn't get 10 players any more. I wouldn't mind giving it another go, just to see how I got on,

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View Post
        Have you finally hung up your whistle?
        Not at all, the casual kicking around is supplementary to that. I reffed a game last year and the bloke reffing the reserves game before mine was 82, and still mobile enough...

        Comment


          #5
          I last played two years ago in Nairobi, age 56. Slower, but still decent in the air. I haven't found a team since moving to Tanzania, but still play touch rugby one a week which keeps up the aerobic levels. And I'm now 20kg lighter than two years ago, which helps.

          Comment


            #6
            Last time I joined in a kickabout with mates was 1990. Never "played" though.

            Comment


              #7
              I've binned off my competitive 6 a side league to play twice a week with Football for Foodbanks. The ability spread means you're never the best nor the worst player, there are no dickheads, it's not a bullshit aggressive environment, it's friendly and welcoming, but most importantly fun. I've not had fun playing football for yonks.

              Comment


                #8
                Jeez, I mean kudos to anyone who's still going.

                I knocked it on the head when I was 33. We were moving away from the area the following summer anyway, and when I played a couple of pre-season friendlies I noticed that my recovery time was much longer and that one of my knees just didn't feel quite right.

                I'm quite sensitive about my knees - I missed a year with osgood-schlatters when I was a teenager and I don't really think I was the same again afterwards - so when the other one didn't feel right it just felt like the right thing to do.

                My sister plays walking football every week in a mixed over-40s league, and she's 57. She was a decent player when she was younger (obviously women's football was enormously smaller than boys; there were no local girls clubs at the time - they could have done with Haringey Borough being around in something like it's current form), so I do occasionally wonder what sort of looks she gets when she rolls out a perfectly placed first time pass, or threads a shot between two players and into the corner of the goal. I know for sure she enjoys it, because she bangs on about something like that having happened the week before every time I speak to her.

                Comment


                  #9
                  I was still playing 6s with the workmates up to a few months ago at 62.
                  I just played the old sweeper role pinging the ball around.

                  Sore on the old back and knees the next day though.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by My Name Is Ian View Post
                    osgood-schlatters
                    I had never heard of this before and half-imagined it had something to do with the late Chelsea player.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      I retired at 29 following "the event".

                      The event being a 75% tear of the Medial Collateral Ligament in my left knee. Not, in most cases, career (ha!) ending, but thanks to some undue pressure from my employer at the time (arseholes who made it clear that another injury which kept me from work for two months would "suggest that I need to be replaced", despite the rugger buggers getting away with weeks off at a time after picking up salmonella from drinking each other's sick, or something) and also some remarkably inept medical attention, my knee is still fucked. Their preferred treatment option of "whack a plaster cast on for seven weeks and let it heal" means that the ligament is now longer than it should be, with the interesting side-effect that I can now flex my knee inward, which apparently looks really gross.

                      Oh, and as a result of all of this the cartilage is now wearing away in a "V" shape, and will go ping at some point. Not that anyone seems willing to stop it doing that, preferring to wait until it does and then fixing it, which seems fucking stupid to me.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I've not played 11-a-side competitively since I was about 20. I wanted to, but I suffer terrible shyness and was never able to just rock up to a team on a Sunday morning to see if I could get a game. I didn't get on with the manager of the Sunday League team I was at so it just never happened after that.

                        I played competitive 5-a-side until about 2015 and also had kickarounds at work on a Tuesday and Friday lunchtime, as we had a 5-a-side cage in which to play on site. That carried on until I was made redundant in 2018 at 33.

                        Since being made redundant by that company the closest I get to playing football is kicking a ball around when coaching my son's u10 team.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Sporting View Post

                          I had never heard of this before and half-imagined it had something to do with the late Chelsea player.
                          It started when I would just get this searing pain whenever I touched my knee against anything, even just brushing it; I can still remember exactly which room I was in at school when I realised how bad it was, and I remember the teacher thinking I was making it up, at first.

                          (On top of that I started getting terrible eczema on the soles of my feet just afterwards but that's a different story.)

                          I've broken my collarbone, my left leg, a thumb and my hand over the years, but I can still remember that pain as though it was yesterday. I was off all football about ten months. I had to lay off the drums for a while, too.

                          I've still got the lump under that kneecap from the subsequent ossification, to this day. It just doesn't hurt any more.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by imp View Post
                            I know that RobW still plays indoor football. It's been a while, I think, since we had a round-up - who's still in action, and what do you get out of it?
                            It's outdoor on 3G pitches I play on. Been a good few weeks, despite always being lumbered with the shittest player that turns up late, leaves immediately without paying and never listens to instructions. I've even managed two goals this year, and we ran out 8-7 winners last time. I put it down to the Lewis Montsma away shirt i've been wearing. Unfortunately our organiser and best defender is away on holiday next Tuesday, so we'll no doubt lose. Been impressed we've been able to get 14-15 players turning up regularly, hasn't always been the case.

                            Might be starting our more laid back kickabout on Regent's Park shortly on Thursday evenings.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I wrapped in 5s/6s about two years ago at 46. Just a few years before I was playing three times a week, but the final straw was migraines just knocking heck out of me. There were a couple of blokes who had turned sixty, one was fit as a lop and up and down the pitch, another who could barely manage to go in goal but was playing on for the social aspect.

                              Apparently that Saturday morning game had roughly a thirty year history, with those two being the last remnants of the original regulars.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Played competitive 11-a-side until I was in my early-40s, then switched to a weekly kickabout until I took over the hut when I was 47. A year later, I realised I wouldn't have the time even for a once-a-week session, so I stopped completely. I was also worried about getting injured and not being able to work because of it.

                                I thought I'd miss it terribly, but I don't miss it at all.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  How's your ankle?

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                    Played competitive 11-a-side until I was in my early-40s, then switched to a weekly kickabout until I took over the hut when I was 47. A year later, I realised I wouldn't have the time even for a once-a-week session, so I stopped completely. I was also worried about getting injured and not being able to work because of it.
                                    <considers pointing out the irony of some things>

                                    I hadn't played for over a decade but started up recently in an informal pick-up game to get to know some people having moved. I am very, very rusty indeed and the small movements of marking someone hurt a lot more than every day running.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Up until the pandemic I was playing at least once a week in my old work 7-a-side, plus occasional other games of 5, 8 or 11-a-side when people I knew were short of bodies for their games. I didn't so much as kick a ball for over a year between March 2020 and April this year, when I tried to return a stray ball in a match I was watching and sliced it so wildly the intended recipient accused me of wasting time for his opposition.

                                      I'm desperate to go back, but keep picking up injuries. My left ankle is weak (I broke it when I was 17) and I now seem to strain that every 18 months or so... just recovered from the most recent one of those and have now damaged my right foot. I'm 38, so a relative youngster I guess, but would love another couple of seasons of 11-a-side in vets football if I can keep the knocks at bay.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        I haven't played five a side or 11 a side for about two years now. I kept up the 11 a side I think quite well until I was about 43 – I started late at the age of about 32 or 33, and I got a lot of satisfaction of marking someone 20 years or more younger than me out of the game. I never got really serious injury so I had a great run. I've started doing other fitness stuff, and I don't miss the football as much as I thought.


                                        Although I adore playing football, there's aspects of it which become difficult and a bit tedious as you get older. With five a side, for instance, I found when I tried to do it again in my forties that the sudden changes of direction were just difficult on the knees and the ankles and it got a bit frustrating not being able to do what I used to be able to do, even though my general level of fitness is good.

                                        I still fork out for a team shirt from my team every year (that's a win-win situation for everyone) and I can't bring myself to get myself taken off the email list. I doubt I will ever make that step. If they were ever desperate for players on a Sunday, and I was feeling in peak condition, I'd consider turning out. But, I threw away my astroturf boots a while ago, and as above, it didn't seem as big an emotional step as I expected.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Picked up playing six a side last year after about a decade "off". Lost whatever touch I had but can still keep goal like a madman which isn't the best idea for someone whose entire income relies on his ability to use his hands. Would love to restart but I'm working from home for the forseeable.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Haven't played since I left Egypt in 2015. Friday evening football is a common way to end the week with teachers, but they're all much younger than me and some of them are actually good, so I was a bit scared off taking part and my knees can really hurt me in the evening and stop me from sleeping. However, I do circuit training with a group of other teachers most weeks, which is helps keep me fit but the camaraderie football delivers is not there. All my best friends from living in Lisbon were people I played football with.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                                              Picked up playing six a side last year after about a decade "off". Lost whatever touch I had but can still keep goal like a madman which isn't the best idea for someone whose entire income relies on his ability to use his hands. Would love to restart but I'm working from home for the forseeable.
                                              Ha ha, I forgot that I volunteered to be celebrity goal keeper in the school house penalty taking competition last month. I saved about 9 out of 10 penalties, the PE teacher organising it had to ask me to let a few in.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post

                                                <considers pointing out the irony of some things>
                                                I thought that might get pointed out.

                                                Yes, all right, I broke my ankle walking down some steps. But I'm sure that I'd have broken or torn something major in the last five years if I hadn't stopped playing when I did.

                                                To ad hoc:
                                                The operation was on Wednesday, everything appears to be going to plan. I have to stay in hospital until Monday so that all the gunk can drain away.

                                                The doctors and the physio said I could even start back at the hut by late June (lightweight duties that can be performed on crutches/one leg only).

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                                  I thought that might get pointed out.
                                                  Not as good as the guy who broke his ankle at our game a few weeks ago. Did himself in retrieving the ball from a menacing hedgerow.

                                                  It is very much the nature of how these things seem to work out - a carefully considered risk-averse decision is followed by some completely absurd pratfall.

                                                  All in all I think it depends on how the game you are involved in plays - the main hazard we encounter is a very hard pitch (90F relentless summer will see to that) and a few rather physical players. But any heavy challenge would result in a straight red, so there isn't really any threat other than very coincidental injuries that could happen anywhere.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X