Our son has recently taken up football. Every Saturday at 6am, he arrives in our bedroom fully dressed in his football kit asking if it is time to leave. We then have to fill the next four hours with football build-up, encouraging him to eat as much cereal as possible and if necessary run a few laps round the garden to limber up.
He has joined Tiny Cherries, a locally-run football club in Sturminster Newton, and spends most of his week talking of nothing else. My husband is thrilled at his eldest son’s enthusiasm for any sport, so much so that after the first session, he convinced me that he needed the full football kit – including the over-priced nylon England kit, football boots and shin pads. Now, I should point out that our son is not fourteen, he is in fact four-years-old.
Not only are the children keen, so too are the fathers that show up at the football pitch every Saturday. They do not just stand on the sideline, shouting out the odd word of encouragement, but can barely contain themselves when they are asked by coach, Darren, to help out. My husband excitedly breaks into a casual jog across the pitch to get in position. In fact, it is only a question of time before he too decides he needs the full football kit to really feel the part. On Monday, in the school playground the boys gather together, the bond between them even stronger after another testosterone-fuelled football session. One of the fathers approaches me and starts chatting about how their football skills are coming on. He comments on our son’s shiny, new kit, saying, “Nice kit.” He then adds, “Of course, my son has red socks rather than white. Much more likely to get spotted by the coach, you see.” Naturally, I laugh this off, but when later I mention it to my husband he gasps, puts his head in his hands and says, “Of course. I should have known that.”
As the week’s go by, my son and husband’s competitive instinct increases. On one occasion, my husband was a little embarassed when our son had a massive temper tantrum and marched off the pitch because he was second rather than first in line for the penalty shoot outs. My husband spent the next 20 minutes giving him sports counselling behind a tree, away from his other team mates and, more importantly, the other fathers.
Now, our son has decided he also wants to turn his hand to rugby as long as he can partake in full on tackles, something he regularly rehearses on his sister, The Baby and the border terrorist. My husband tells him, “Football will give you the valuable ball handling techniques for rugby.” With that, the four-year-old skips off saying, “I’m just off to play dinner ladies with my sister.”
