The Most Important of all Unimportant Things

Once again, we're a couple of weeks into a full national lockdown in the UK, our third one since Covid-19 extended it's malicious grip over our ill-prepared world. Nothing is more important than people's lives, and it's the right decision by the government. Always looking for positivity even in the darkest of hours, the FC7 way, in fact, if we cast our minds back to the balmy summer of 2020, it was one of our founding principles.

You have 2 choices when restrictions are forced upon you, to moan and standstill or accept them and make the best of a bad situation. Lockdowns offer a great opportunity for reflection, to step back from it all, an occasion to remember, reminisce, of good times past, and it seemed the perfect moment for me to have a glance back, before we cast our eye forward to better times once more.

This, is what football means to me...

Football is THE beautiful game, I love watching it, catching any game on TV when I can. Back when elite football was banned due to Covid restrictions, I even watched "computer vs computer" on my PlayStation 4 to fill the void. Ask any footy fan, watching it, can be a bewitching experience, but what we all truly yearn, is to play it.

It's escapism, and it's not. It's an opportunity to put in a crate, all the misgivings you may have in your daily life, if only for 60 minutes. A chance to veritably fulfil childhood dreams of being the next Messi or Ronaldo, Pele or Maradona, maybe not to the doyens of footballing journalism, but to yourself, your team mates and opponents. The actuality of scoring "that" goal, sublime, technically out of this World, in front of an animated, baying crowd, which more often than not, sadly turns out to be one man and his dog.

Truthfully, it's the Friday Night Lights, the only devotees, legitimately watching.

Do we care?

No.

For the next hour we're all carefree, surfing the green waves, at one with the elements.

I started playing football at school like many of us but I participated in Cubs and Scouting around the same time which offered me even more moments to get a game in. I also played a little bit of Sunday League, with FC Dodgy, our red and black halves were pretty cool gazing back forthwith.

I have fond recollections of the Cub scout weekly 11-a-side match and the summer 5-a-side tournaments I played in. Our troop, the 6th Sittingbourne Eagles, was a small but perfectly formed one. We didn't have huge numbers and we unquestionably didn't have a huge budget. Pulling on perhaps, the itchiest most incommodious team kit ever. It didn't diminish the pride I had when glimpsing a quick reflection of myself wearing the the blood and gold. As I hinted already, we weren't the best resourced organisation around and the results emulated this.

Hammering after hammering, week after week.

Did it dent my enthusiasm?

No.

I loved it, savoured every second of it. Playing a small village cub troop, Teynham 10th (exotically kitted out in tangerine and black), on a grass pasture covered with at least 20 mole hills, only supplemented my experience. Playing on the weekend, getting up at an ungodly hour, was effortless. When you live for something so much, everything is easy to do. I can't remember what I'd do during a mundane week at school, but I can almost recant every game we played at for the Eagles. I dreaded going to guitar lessons, detested karate, but I'd happily soldier on through learning survival skills at dib dib dob nights, just so I could make it on the team sheet for that weekend's game. The price we pay...

6th Sittingbourne Panthers, who shared our cub hall on alternating days of the week, were our rivals. Playing them at 11-a-side was a derby, the only Clasico in my adolescent mind! I don't think we beat them once. I do relive being jealous of their kit, however. It had a gleaming cerulean visage, with fetching white pinstripes and white V-neck collars, Ol' Deep Blue, I affectionately called it. White shorts and socks completed the ensemble. There was vivid sadness once, it hit me like like a ball to my face, the stinging pangs of upset, when my parents told me that the Eagles were disbanding.......but that anguish vanished like Paul Parker in a 4-man wall when they followed up by saying that all members were allowed to join up to the Panthers free of charge, 'Would you like that?' my folks nonchalantly asked, not knowing this was a matter of survival to me. The rest was history. Apprehensive at first, we mixed in well and made friends. Soon came our first match in the azure Pinstripes and I had made it on the team sheet.

Pulling on that prickle-free shirt, the blue seemed purer, as deep an ultramarine as the ocean itself, almost enchanting, 100% more gratifying than when I first enviously set my eyes upon it all those months ago during one of our Clasicos. It was my armour, and I looked after it accordingly. I never had pets as a child, this kit was the nearest thing I had to possessing one, it required 24/7 care, ironed inside out, cold washes, and looked after like a faithful canine companion. The memories of the Eagles were gone but not forgotten, though soon enough we were playing the same 11-a-side games on the same mole hill infested meadows at 9am on a Saturday, dodging the rodents' handy work as if we were cats on a hot tin roof. Praise be to my parents, who diligently without fail would drop me off, participate in some mundanely adult chit chat with the cub leaders and other guardians of youth before shooting off to Sainsburys for the family's weekly shop. As the Panthers, we won, we won more than we lost, and when summer rolled on up, there were 5-a-side tournaments to be had.

The highlight of many of my summers were these sweltering comps, we were better than the Eagles, I remember coming out of a difficult group of death in the round robin phase and forging gallantly through the last 32, then 16, the Quarter finals before being thumped 5-1 in the semis. It was the proudest I'd ever been in my young budding life, that jersey the "Ol' Deep Blue".....I felt I had done it proud. We even had these nifty medals to show off to no one who cared. I was never that great a footballer, but I had found my level and home with the Cubs when it came to beautiful game and I had discovered joy in it's purest element.

I still maintain I was a technically gifted player, but at school they always favoured athleticism over skill, the first XI were made up of the chavs, the fastest runners and not much else. Although I'm probably making excuses, this probably does account for some of England's failures on the elite stage, I swear!

That doesn't mean school footy was immune of happier moments, far from it. I had played several games at junior and secondary school level, all 11-a-side on marshy pitches that had the ear mark a Winterfell battle zone than the beautiful game. One of said games was a league encounter against Dartford Grammar, they had 3 West Ham, 2 Gillingham and a Charlton youth player in their ranks. I had been chucked in my usual stop gap position of midfield with no instructions given to me except kick it, kick it long. By now I'd become robotic in my hoofing up and overs, but for some reason a few scant minutes in, I got all above myself and went full-on Iniesta and split their defence to shreds like an unsheathed samurai katana through neck by intelligently needling the ball through to Kevin Coomber, our top scorer, who despatched a humdinger of a shot that the keeper could do nothing but admire as it rocketed into the back of the onion bag.

10 minutes later we were 2-0 up, Craig Short, a peculiar coiffed classmate of mine, he jigged his way niftily through a couple of challenges like a ballerina before deftly chipping the ball over the keeper. So much for the West Ham contingent.

Fast forward 80 more minutes, we lost 7-2, but I didn't care, it was footballing bliss captured in a bottle when I look back now, we celebrated on the minibus home like we'd won the league title, drinking our imaginary champagne. Only a 7-2 defeat could be celebrated like this with our beloved game.

All in all, I just felt I wasn't taken seriously for the school team, shoved into awkward defensive roles or defensive midfield more often than not. It's funny how things come full circle, I class myself as a tried and trusted DM nowadays at FC7 with a slight sprinkling of playmaker thrown in. Some of my better thoughts and good memories of school in general, come from playing the sport at lunchtimes, waiting daily for what seemed an eternity for the Headmaster to officially announce the odd British tradition of "Short Sleeve Order" in summer so we could come dressed to school in our white polo shirts and shorts. During the cold, muddy autumns and winters, football was on TV (Italian Serie A football I hasten to add, Sky had stolen our domestic jewel in theCue one splendid day I remember fondly. We begin by casting our unlikely hero, my biology teacher, (a normally boring, ungainly, tall, character ripped straight from the Harry Potter bestiary), one Mr Frost.. He sacked off double biology for us to take to the playing field and start up a game of football. Boots not required, glorious British summers meant trainers were suffice.

We then had an hours lunch, to continue this sporting marathon before double PE to end this most perfect of day. I think we played for 5 hours in total, and the score was 54-50. This was probably my happiest memory of school.90s remember!). When the adult season was coming to end, that's when football for us, the kids of the shell suited nineties, really started our legends. With the summer academic term nearing its end, things began to wind down, everyone including the teachers beginning to take their foot off the pedal. Relaxing and coasting towards the upcoming, sunny, gleaming holidays.

It'd be remiss of me for failing to recount that 'one' winter House tournament though. Let me quickly add that for the sake of completion, woe betide anyone accusing me of embellishment though. I was honoured to be elected house football captain, I think we were called "School" and we played in some tatty navy blue number, not a patch on the "shiny blue of the Panthers". The other houses were "Barrow (green), Borden (red) and Swale (yellow)" if me noggin serves me right. Back then, hand me downs were a common procedure, if you had an older brother, it was a classic money saving exercise to get their gear handed down to you through time. This was a normal and accepted practise, the only issue for me was that my brother was 10 years older than me. It meant my boots were the oldest in my year. I don't think they even had a make, I swear they were probably worth millions at an antiques auction, they just didn't look a million pounds on feet as I strutted out as team lead.

Still, me looking like a brown "Billy's Boots" comic book character, wasn't an issue, I had some pretty impressive skills back then, I was nimble, quick and the colour of my skin had its rare advantages back then, I had experienced racism daily back in Kent during the 80s/90s, but at it's worst it was a naivety, an ignorance, there was no malice in it (I'm sure many will take umbrage with my simplified recanting of racism back then, but that's for another post). At it's best, one of the aforementioned silly benefits was that everyone thought my exotic looks and name equated to me being Brazilian.

For once in my life I didn't disappoint. First semi, and School despatched Swale, 3-0, 11-a-side and me grabbing the third goal, I had delicately placed a long distance curler David Beckham would of been proud of, to wrap up our win. Post-game, I was carried upon the shoulders of my classmates but I dutifully calmed them down stating we had won nothing yet, a true captain, I was. We faced Barrow in the final, they were pre-season favourites, I don't have a clue why, we were kids, but 30mins later, we had won the epic conquest 2-0 and the house shield was ours for the year. I had setup both goals and I felt like I had truly led by example. The following year we tanked, beaten 5-0 and 3-0 and finished last, but let's skip past that. I only really remember us as glorious champions anyways!

Ah, the memories, the nostalgia. Things no man can rob me of. This is what makes you rich. Not money, job titles or cars. For a combined fee of nothing other than my own hand crafted love, I had dreams that I could take all the way with me to the grave.

Moving on through my odyssey or whatever you want to call it, I had made it to college against the odds. At university, my digs, near Palmer Park in Reading offered me and my 5 flatmates, three whole years of footy heaven on their dingy 2G astro turf, I still have nightmares over the burns from sliding Maldini-esque last ditch tackles which in live vision were probably more akin to a toddler slipping over onto their backside.

Palmer Park, what a place, I could be wrong, but it always seemed deserted, it added to the mysticism of the game we were about to play. I'm sure Reading experienced fog only 10 days a year, but I vividly remember the "cage" being cloaked in it, like an assassin about to make his living. On command, it would disappear, job done, off to his next assignment, like a well trained waiter at a restaurant, ready to accept it's role as secondary to the main cast. We stepped on the sandy, itchy surface, excited beyond words, none of us showing it however, in the false knowledge that it might give "our game" away. Sometimes it was just a case of 5 of us playing Road to Wembley, Headers and Volleys or a simple game of penalties to see who did the weekend chores.

Periodically, there would be another motley rabble of fivers playing on the turf. Always at one end though, it was an edgy time. We would scope each other out like heavyweights at a weigh in, generally pleasant but with a tinge of uneasiness in equal measure. Inevitably, we would make 'first contact', and ask them if they wanted a game. All frigidity would disappear as quick as our old friend, Fog the Assassin, and it was game on.

I still have many memories of these games, hours and hours, sunburnt skin, sand in my hair for days on end, this was the soundtrack to a couple of my summers at the turn of the millennium.

Growing up.

The bane of humanity in my view, it happens to the best of us. I graduated and after a year of reflection I signed up to my first job. Things had taken a decidedly adult tone. I had to drive to the office, I have ambiguous memories of googling what pensions and mortgages were.

In the office there was football banter aplenty, but all fell short of there actually being a weekly kickaround. By now, other things came to importance in my life, doing your job, shuttling to and from the office, relationships, loves lost, and a whole plethora of other 'adult' toned tasks to perform. It's saddening. For something I loved so much, often you can take it for granted, neglect the very thing that made you smile, made you happy.

And boom, it had happened, all thoughts of playing football had disappeared. I'd moved onto another company by now, drinking and socialising was the next step up in adulthood. And this is when I shock even myself. There was football being played every week, but I ducked it, I gave every excuse under the sun, I played several games to be fair during lunchtime sessions, but I don't have many memories of it.

Because I had fallen out of love with football?

No.

Because I had let other less meaningful pursuits take priority over my first romance.

I was a weaker person back then, things that were important to me, looking back now, meant nothing. I was eager to prove myself to others not myself, I had anger in abundance, winning arguments took precedent over being nice or even being right. I made mistakes, loads of them, I wasn't learning from them either. I guess during my mid 20s to my early 30s it was all a bit of a blur. I don't think I was ever truly happy back then during that epoch, but I think I'm lucky too.

At least I can acknowledge without that period of my life I wouldn't be the person I am now. Your life is a jigsaw puzzle, take a piece away and you're incomplete. I'm not perfect, far from it, but I don't think you need to be, aspire to it sure. I learnt a huge amount and I'm content in my life now, happiness comes to me, I no longer chase it, I'm lacking this emptiness, that I had to fill with temporary materialistic things. I feel one reason for me losing my way, was that I didn't stay true to one of my base feelings, my love for football. I missed 10-15 years of my life in some ways if it look at it in footballing terms.

Sad.

Regret no.

Flash forward to 2019, where the tragic loss of our colleague; Luca, hit me hard. I wasn't particularly close to him, I'd do my job in IT Support, fix his pooter and I'd have long footy rambles with him but my own personal story which you can read about elsewhere was coming to the boil around the same time. I had a huge decision to make, the sad loss we had all just experienced, brought my own mortality to the fore. Not long after we arranged and successfully pulled off Luca's Charity Memorial Tournament, I got positive news from Hammersmith Hospital, it was all systems go. 2019 was a massive year for me on a personal level looking back, it surprises me still now. The charity tournament was the spark I needed, it turns out, the spark WE needed as FC7. Like jump leads, it lit the embers that had always been there. The love for playing was ever present within me, the fire, just needed to be re-ignited.

After all that time. It was a relief, a fleeting moment of joy in a sad year, but personally it was just bad timing.

After the tournament, Jumbo was eager to strike while the iron was hot, enthusiasm at our place of work for footy, was at an all time high. As much as I wanted to throw myself into it and rekindle that youthful passion I had lost for over a decade, I sadly just couldn't commit. I didn't know whether I was going to be alive let alone free to sign up for some 5 v 5 shenanigans come October. It was an ever present feeling, the unknown, just hovering behind me, like the reaper himself.

Luckily, playing ball is about being a team, and Jumbo, ManBaby, Frodo, Tey and Billybobs all dutifully stepped up to the plate (annoying how I had to use a baseball link there). They managed to organise a 5-a-side game against John Lewis, and shortly afterwards, started playing Footy Addicts games at the tail-end of 2019, enough games to give people a taste of it. Unfortunately, the Christmas period proved difficult in terms of numbers and then the looming Covid-19 crisis put paid to anything more, but it's poetic justice, that the FC7 tale dovetailed with my own. The lads had a re-ignited their passion for football...and so had I.

The embers had been given life.

Thankfully my op went well, and recovery over the space of 6 months was achieved. As mentioned, Covid had de-railed our dreams, but this was nothing, in comparison to what I had been through the year before, I can't and won't complain. It just meant I had to wait a little longer before I made that long overdue run out onto the green waves. The story of the summer of 2020 is told elsewhere on the blog, but that's where we are.

This was the beginnings of the FC7 Story. Follow us as it plays out in real time.

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This is what football means to me. The joy, it's hard to explain or put into words, but there's an air of realistic fantasy about it. Confused? In that it all happened for real, but in a fantastical era that age doesn't dampen. Does it exist anymore? I accept, much like love, no one who can truly pen their thoughts on the subject down on paper. You can only jot a kaleidoscope of memories, ones though that I will forever cherish.

This is why I love football.

The Most Important of Unimportant Things.

Sujan