The Inside Forward - They think it's all over

Retirement. Like the hooded figure of death lurking in the shadows it comes calling for all of us footballers at some point. How we deal with the inevitable varies greatly. Often the first you’ll hear about a teammate’s retirement will be an empty seat in the changing room the following season. Not for us the testimonials, retirement of your shirt number and rapturous applause from the fans. One long standing member of our club announced his decision and received a couple of pats on the back and a few mumbles of, ‘see you around sometime.’ I suppose technically one could say he received a standing ovation at his last game from the solitary supporter but only because we have no seats.

Then there are the guys living in a cloud of delusion, who can’t read the signs, who persistently ignore that hooded figure gently knocking at the door. There’s no greater case study in self denial than our 46 year-old full back who over the course of a decade managed to blank out his body’s warning signs; the alarm bells, whirring sirens and wailing klaxons all pleading him to jack it in.

My initial admiration for his longevity slowly transformed into incredulity that he thought he could still cut it in our, admittedly lowly, league. First the little pace that he had started to vanish until he was almost running backwards and then the rest of the leg power went until he resembled a beetle pushing his dung ball up a big hill, only to see it roll straight back down again when he got to the half way line. To compensate he did develop a delightful little hack to take down the wingers who had the audacity to breeze past him. Eventually Old Father Time did catch up with him and he found himself ousted from the line up by his own son.

After moving through the first four stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining and depression, we finally reach the inevitable conclusion – acceptance. But then what? How does one replace the adrenalin rush of chugging round a muddy pitch on a cold and dark January Saturday afternoon?

Well one option is to chug round a slippery astro turf pitch on a cold and dark January weeknight in a veterans’ league. One such over 35s team has been hitting me up for a few years now, ever since I played as a sneaky 32 year-old ringer and duly scored a hat trick from centre back. There’s nothing like the ego boost you get from surging past every single opposition player, even if some of them are pushing 60 and getting a little doddery.

They do, however, still have the technique and can move the ball like the Chelsea midfield. Unfortunately they move their bodies like Chelsea Pensioners and are usually exhausted by kick-off after the trudge out from the dressing rooms. My positively gazelle-like excursions from defence didn’t seem to impress the opposition too much and I can definitively state that whilst they may have slowed down a bit but with age, their elbows have become much pointier.

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