For the past seven weeks I've been hobbling around the place, and suffering from occasional spasms of pain shooting all the way down one leg- pains which until a fortnight ago were enough to startle me bolt upright, with monotonous regularity, at 4:30 every morning. Apparently it's called sciatica, which until recently I would have imagined to be the name of the Inter Milan right-back. Instead it turns out to be what happens when an inflamed disc at the base of the spine exerts pressure on some nerve or other at the top of the leg. Anyway you can take it from me it's no bleeding fun at all, and the discovery that my suffering is shared by celebrities such as the former Manchester United centre-back Gary Pallister do nothing to brighten my daily outlook.
I suppose this is what happens to thirty-nine year olds who forget for sixty minutes a week that they're not twenty-five any more and go careering with wild abandon around football pitches, fondly imagining themselves to be performing a passable impersonation of Peter Beardsley in his pomp. This is what I had been up to on that fateful March Tuesday night on pitch six of the Whalley Range five-a-side centre . Nothing untoward seemed to have befallen me as a result- until I tried to walk off the pitch and found that one of my legs seemed intent on staying exactly where it was.
It really is a crying shame, as I had (in common with every thirty-nine-year-old amateur five-a-side player in the country) until that moment clung to a faint hope that there was still time for my criminally overlooked ballplaying flair to be spotted by the professional talent scout who we imagine to be secretly watching our every move and scribbling away in a notebook . It was only a matter of time, I felt, before this grizzled old figure, resplendent in raincoat and cloth cap, stepped out from behind the bushes and intoned the magic words- 'Here, put these clothes on'. The following Saturday would see me make my debut for Newcastle United, coming off the bench as a 79th minute replacement for Obafemi Martins, and setting up a last minute winner with a far-post cross after a mazy dribble through a tiring Birmingham City defence.
That was what I imagined would happen seven weeks ago when I still had the use of both legs. Now I'm starting to have my doubts. Perhaps it really is expecting too much of a multi-million pound Premiership outfit to take a chance on an untried thirty-nine-year-old office worker with a pronounced limp, whose career highlight so far remains a thirty yard lob over the stranded goalkeeper of Stafford Polytechnic's Third XI, which formed the consolation goal in a 9-3 defeat sometime in the late 80s. A sad indictment, I'm sure you would agree, on the lack of romance in the modern game.
Of course bits of me seizing up inexplicably for months at a time is all I should really be expecting now that I'm very nearly about to be forty. Yes, forty. Young Frankie (who is very into birthdays, his imaginary friend Dodder recently had one that lasted several weeks) seems to be looking forward to it more than I am. He says he's got a surprise present wrapped up for me and he can't possibly tell me what it is- then in a moment of weakness lets slip that it is 'A tractor, and a fox'.
A tractor, and a fox. I don't think we can possibly improve on that so we'll leave it there for now, shall we, as it is late and I need to hobble off up the stairs for the night. Next time out, I'll reveal what was really in the surprise package, and offer various sage words from my new-found perspective of just the other side of thirty nine and therefore probably- probably- just ever so slightly too old to be entertaining serious thoughts of embarking on an alternative career in professional football. Until then, then.
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