(no subject)
Tonight I reached probably the pinnacle of my footballing career. I didn't score in our 1-1 tie, and neither was I particularly involved in our goal, but I had a good game, with two moments I shall forever relate to my grandchildren (in the unlikely).
The first, merely a foreshadow of what was to come; I uncharacteristically chased the ball back into midfield (it was, according to my computer, 40C in the shade before I went out; there is no shade on the Dobbie Lambert Memorial Fields, so chasing anything was undesirable), simultaneously won a shoulder to shoulder challenge at fairly high speed, and dragged the ball back with the sole of my boot. My opponent ran on, completely lost, while I turned and played a lovely through ball for Eric (not my boss) to screw up.
The moment of genius, though, would be the kind of thing that, had someone captured it on video, would have become an instant clip in every 'how to bamboozle a defender' webpage out there. There must be hundreds. The situation was this. I was on the right wing, maybe thirty yards diagonally from the middle of the goal, facing the touchline. The defender was between me and the goal; the ball was at my feet. I had an obvious pass towards the wing but instead dragged the ball behind me, through the defender's legs, ran around the outside of him and played another beautiful through ball for Eric to screw up. Let's run that again: a Cruyff turn and a nutmeg in the same touch of the ball, a move of such beauty that anyone even contemplating it in the Fife League would have spent the next year in hospital recovering from the next tackle.
I was feeling inventive, creative, energetic - I almost didn't notice it was baking hot. Everyone's playing well... and that's my last game for a couple of weeks as we're off to England on Tuesday.