5-a-side
I've gotten back to playing 5-a-side once a week recently. It's been a little while as we moved a little bit too far away from the previous group I played with and I had never really gotten back into the rhythm of it after I tore my calf muscle.
It is funny how many injuries you can pick up in a friendly game. I wouldn't say anyone is particularly rough in this group but I've got a fair kick from a studded boot on my ankle, bruised my arm saving a ball and - worst of all - took a rebound to the face that smashed my glasses and left me with the tiniest black eye ever. Thankfully there hasn't been any injuries as bad as the one I had with my calf - and notably this group does seem to play a bit safer than the last one which is great.
I love how relaxed the organising is for 5-a-side. Someone posts on facebook and suddenly there are 30 guys in a Whatsapp group. There are never any issues getting numbers and I don't really know anybody's name but we all have a chill time out there every Friday.
I am notably now one of the older players in the group and some of these college students run circles around me with their fancy feet. Hopefully with a bit of work, I'll rediscover a bit of my pace and explosiveness. On the other hand, this has been one of the first times I've been able to leverage a bit of my strength from gym training, so I am improving in that area.
I used to see myself as a box-to-box midfielder but with my current fitness I'm not really getting from box-to-box fast enough. I have flashes of brilliance but technically I've always been a bit limited on the ball. I need to keep at it so I can outwork everyone else on the pitch.
Overall, it's been nice to have this going every week. It's fun to get out there and run around after a full week of work and I hope that we continue to get good numbers as we have done so far.
I've been at this 5-a-side lark on and off for more than 15 years now