Go on, go on, ask me. Ask me how I got on.

The ball was placed therein, 5 times

There are days when you have some news, but no one to tell it to. It may not be very important news, but you want to get it off your chest. I have this particular urge to share after I’ve played football, and my team has won, and I’ve scored.

The other night I played in an eight-a-side game in an outdoor league. It was one of those dark, sodden, autumnal nights when you really question your own sanity for making a 40-mile round trip just to play football for an hour. You feel like it’s going to be one of those games when you get shellacked, and then think it’s time to give up football for good. And then, the goals come. Your team wins 6-2, and you score five. You leave the field aglow, and climb into your car in an unstoppable mood. Now all you need is someone who wants to know how you got on. If you get stopped for speeding, you won't mind - you'll just tell the cop all about the game until he lets you off.

“We won 6-2 and I scored five goals.” That’s the sentence in your head that you want to
offload. On a Monday evening, after nine o, clock, there is only going to be one audience – your loving family. When you get home, they will surely ask you how you got on. And you will tell them. The score, and the number of goals within that score you personally were responsible for, being the man who got the final touch on just short of half a dozen occasions. Nigh on a double hat-trick, precious ones.

I walk up the front step, noting the lack of a glorious welcome committee waving triumphant banners. But that can not be helped, for how can my family already know that we won 6-2 (and that I scored five goals). I can’t be bothered to look for my key, which is down in the depths of my kit bag somewhere, so I ring the doorbell. No one comes. I ring it again. Finally, a voice - Who’s there? It’s me, who else? You scared me, Mrs. Pop says. Who comes ringing on our door at this time on a Monday night? She’s more annoyed that I disturbed her watching telly. She’s not interested in how the team got on, or my part in its victory, and she heads back to her armchair, disgruntled.

I go for a shower. I encounter both indie-pop kids, and we talk. But not about the game, even though I’m standing there in my full gear, the triumph in my eyes. I come out of the shower, then go down to the kitchen to eat and read the paper. Eventually Mrs. Pop walks in, her telly programme over. We talk for a while about this and that. And then, well over an hour after my return home, she asks, Oh, how did the footie go?

Ah, funny you should ask, my darling. We won 6-2, and, I. Scored. Five. Goals.

Really? she says. So you were playing a pretty crap team tonight then.

And the annoying thing is that, as usual, she was pretty much right.