The Inside Forward - An Introduction

The rain is lashing down, the skies are a menacing shade of grey and the turning leaves indicate the oncoming season just as I too am entering the Autumn, the Autumn of my career. After a good 15 years of slogging away in various Sunday and Saturday amateur soccer leagues it’s time to lift the lid on the inner machinations of these teams, the politics, the scandals, the characters and the plain bizarre antics that only happen in the amateur arena. It’s time to reveal all before one too many headed kick-outs erases them permanently.

Forget the mollycoddled and pampered professional footballers, the real passion and entertainment is right down in the mud and puddles of the farmer’s fields, the inner city greens and the forgotten corners of the countryside the Sunday league hackers slog through each week, the only common link running between them being the rusty, crooked set of goalposts at each end.

You won’t see millionaire premiership players braving fields of intimidating horses just to get their ball back. You won’t find them hopelessly fending off a ten pint hangover whilst simultaneously reaching in vain for that young whippersnapper’s shirt as he whisks past you in his flashy white boots. You won’t see them taking advantage of a break in play by urinating in the centre circle (was it really too much effort to get to the touchline first?). It’s grass roots stuff but in the case of many of the pitches, the grass roots are strictly figurative.

This is where the true madness happens, where players play not for financial riches but for the love of the game. Where amateurs instead pay a match fee for the dubious privilege of having a referee officiate what you and your team mates offer up as soccer and more often than not, strongly disagree with every decision he makes.

This column will explore this richly diverse scene drawing on my own true life experiences and maybe offer up some kind of explanation as to why we all continue to do it week in week out. There’ll be no anodyne, post match interview type blandness or clichés, just raw honesty and some good stories you’d only encounter in the mad world of amateur football.

The Inside Forward will kick-off on Thursday 5^th June and will run fortnightly. If you have any comments you can contact the Inside Forward on our Twitter at @insideforward11