So, Tuesday night, and my team- the whites- have just gone 14-11 down. In just 10 minutes the big clunky gate in the corner will be clicked open and the 9 o'clock players will begin their weekly pitch invasion, ambling onto the playing surface to lay claim to their territory and signal the end of our hour-long 5-a-side friendly. Deciding to take matters in hand, I take the short ball from the restart and advance on the phalanx of red-shirted defenders blocking the path to goal. Feinting to go right, I shift balance and skip past the first challenger, Andy 'Slim' Charlton, in a move reminiscent of the great Georghe Kinkladzhe in his pomp. A second opponent- I think it is Simon 'Harry' Shipperley- is seen off with the aid of a Peter Beardsley-esque double-foot shuffle, and suddenly only the advancing figure of the wily veteran stopper Don Guest stands in the way of the sort of spectacular runaway goal that will be remembered for as long as this great game of football is talked about in the pubs, clubs and workplaces of Britain.
My seemingly unstoppable trajectory is taking me clear away to Guest's left, but- perhaps deciding my mazy run is not yet mazy enough- I decide to stop dead in my tracks and slip the ball through my opponent's legs as he moves in to challenge. It is at this stage that my dodgy right ankle, which has been held together by a piece of string since an unscheduled late-night tumble down the stairs of Jesmond Metro Station 10 years ago, decides enough is enough, and gives way under the pressure. In agony, I collapse into a heap, screaming 'ah me bastard ankle!', and have to be helped off the pitch, and out through the clunky gate in the corner, where I watch the rest of the now-uneven game while hopping on one foot and swearing under my breath. It seems my place in history, or at least in the annals of Tuesday Night Football as the Scorer of The Game's Greatest Ever Goal, is going to have to wait for a few more weeks at least.
By the next morning the situation has not improved. I ring up work and regale my boss with an in-depth description of my mazy run and its hideous outcome (she seems strangely unimpressed), then attach the packet of frozen peas (apparently they work much better than tinned ones, for some reason) to my swollen joint and settle down to consider the best way to spend my newly-acquired day off. After a moment, my eyes alight on a recently purchased DVD box-set, featuring the entire first two series of the acclaimed US sit-com Seinfeld, with numerous interviews and added features. Suddenly the idea of forced immobility does not seem so bad after all.
Twleve hours later, the frozen ankle has shrunk to the mere diameter of a snooker ball. Charlotte has gone out to a Baby Club meeting (the Baby Club has decided to set itself up as a rival to the United Nations; tonight it is drafting a constitution and considering a pre-emptive nuclear attack on North Korea), and has left me nominally in charge of the sleeping Frankie. I have not moved from my post all day, and am just settling down to enjoy 'The Apartment' episode with audio commentary by the Script Assistant and Spanish subtitles when a low wailing sound starts to emanate from the baby monitor, develping very quickly indeed into a deafening, unignorable high-pitched screech. I hobble up the stairs to find a soaking wet cot- the poor baby has been sick all over his bedclothes and appears to be in some distress.
I divest Frankie of his soaking babygro and make a frantic call to babygroup HQ, but even the return of his adoring mam can not rouse Frankie from his increasingly weakened state. Two more vomiting episodes later we are at our wits' end, and make a call to the out-of-hours Doctors Surgery, who tell us to get down to the hospital right away. We pile into the Fiat Punto, and, one dash through the city's deserted southern reaches later, are ushering Frankie out of the rain and past an unsavoury looking pair of characters sporting ugly gashes to the forehead and swigging openly from giant plastic cider bottles, who appear to have appointed themselves as unofficial doormen to the Accident and Emergency Department of the Manchester Royal Infirmary. It is 10:00PM.
Needless to say, Frankie has used the 10-minute car journey to effect a full recovery from his apparently life-threatening ailment. He positively bounces out of our arms and onto the examination table, beaming widely and gurgling appreciatively at his interesting new surroundings. During this apparent audition for a Pampers advert, the harassed but courteous doctor furrows his brow, and, clearly wondering what sort of neurotic ne'erdowells rush their perfectly healthy child to the hospital in the middle of the night for no apparent reason whatsoever, quietly enquires, 'so- what exactly appears to be the problem here?'. I feel a little guilty about wasting his time, and consider letting him have a look at the ankle just to make the appointment worthwhile for all concerned. He does look the sporty type after all- perhaps I could interest him in the story of my mazy but cruelly curtailed run on goal?
And now it is Friday afternoon. Frankie is back in rosy health; I am back at work and considering entering Mastermind with a specialist subject of 'Seinfeld, the Early Days'; and The Levenshulme Baby Group are sending a Peace Envoy to get the troubled Middle Eastern Roadmap back on track. In other words all is well with the world again. But for a few moments there, it was all a little bit frantic. It can be difficult to combine careers in top class sport and global shuttle diplomacy with the everyday rigours of childrearing, I will have you know.
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