I used to play football (Soccer) when I was younger. Those distant memories stirred within while I was watching an Olympic football match the other day.
We then had a football ground, committed players and time. In those good old days, no one had ever heard of cricket and none of us ever seen a TV either. The playground belonged to the local Upper Primary School. When school was off on weekends and holidays, it was our territory. No one else was crazy to play under a hot noon sun during daytime. We had the field for ourselves, except may be for an occasional cow grazing peacefully on the field. This we didn't mind. Live and let live but try not to step in that cow dung!
'We' were 4 or 5 kids. Average age being 7 years or so. We make teams of 2 each or sometimes 2 on one side and 3 on the other. It was not wise to make anyone feel left out. Especially when it was the younger brother of my classmate. The brat will then go and complain to his parents and if my classmate is called home to explain, we can't very well play with the rest, see?
We used to play in the 4-3-3 formation mostly. We invented the concept of 'timely goalie'. When the ball is near a goal area, which eventually happens even on that vast field with 5 kids and a rubber ball the size of a tennis ball, the guy closer for the concerned team assumed the role of goal keeper and played goalie.
We wore skin colored uniforms. No boots were required. None of us wore any footwear for that matter. We were shirtless and our tan was visible to the astute observer who could look through the burn we got playing under the sun all the time. Properly dressed guys in this group had functioning buttons on their (Half) trousers. Not so properly dressed ones wore their trousers like a dhoti. That is to pull the right half side with the left hand and the left side with the right hand while pulling in the stomach to tie a knot. It was not uncommon to see your star striker stopping in the middle of a run to hitch up his trousers and fix it again before resuming the attack.
We played some. Argued and fought more. Other times we spent time searching for the ball when it went out of play. Old pros like us didn't have the conveniences of today's players. Nobody brought us drinks on field. We went to the nearest well for the drinks.
In the evenings, local grownups played soccer in the same field. They played with a regular football, big one with air in it and having those black and white spots design on it. We played in the 'out'field when the grownups played. When their ball went out of play, we would eagerly retrieve it and send it soaring back in to the field, sometimes even 10 whole feet, to the impatiently waiting players. How else you can hope to play one of those real balls?
They sometimes gave us the old discarded balls but ultimately it will lose air and the bladder will be out soon. We didn't have any means to put air in it then. Somebody would be wearing it for a cap in the end.
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During rainy seasons, this playground used to get flooded. There were rice fields towards one side of it. Water will come up and we sometimes played a game which would later go on to become popularly known as water polo. We didn't grudge the floods. We accepted it calmly and fished when we couldn't play ball. Or we just made waves.
We then had a football ground, committed players and time. In those good old days, no one had ever heard of cricket and none of us ever seen a TV either. The playground belonged to the local Upper Primary School. When school was off on weekends and holidays, it was our territory. No one else was crazy to play under a hot noon sun during daytime. We had the field for ourselves, except may be for an occasional cow grazing peacefully on the field. This we didn't mind. Live and let live but try not to step in that cow dung!
'We' were 4 or 5 kids. Average age being 7 years or so. We make teams of 2 each or sometimes 2 on one side and 3 on the other. It was not wise to make anyone feel left out. Especially when it was the younger brother of my classmate. The brat will then go and complain to his parents and if my classmate is called home to explain, we can't very well play with the rest, see?
We used to play in the 4-3-3 formation mostly. We invented the concept of 'timely goalie'. When the ball is near a goal area, which eventually happens even on that vast field with 5 kids and a rubber ball the size of a tennis ball, the guy closer for the concerned team assumed the role of goal keeper and played goalie.
We wore skin colored uniforms. No boots were required. None of us wore any footwear for that matter. We were shirtless and our tan was visible to the astute observer who could look through the burn we got playing under the sun all the time. Properly dressed guys in this group had functioning buttons on their (Half) trousers. Not so properly dressed ones wore their trousers like a dhoti. That is to pull the right half side with the left hand and the left side with the right hand while pulling in the stomach to tie a knot. It was not uncommon to see your star striker stopping in the middle of a run to hitch up his trousers and fix it again before resuming the attack.
We played some. Argued and fought more. Other times we spent time searching for the ball when it went out of play. Old pros like us didn't have the conveniences of today's players. Nobody brought us drinks on field. We went to the nearest well for the drinks.
In the evenings, local grownups played soccer in the same field. They played with a regular football, big one with air in it and having those black and white spots design on it. We played in the 'out'field when the grownups played. When their ball went out of play, we would eagerly retrieve it and send it soaring back in to the field, sometimes even 10 whole feet, to the impatiently waiting players. How else you can hope to play one of those real balls?
They sometimes gave us the old discarded balls but ultimately it will lose air and the bladder will be out soon. We didn't have any means to put air in it then. Somebody would be wearing it for a cap in the end.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
During rainy seasons, this playground used to get flooded. There were rice fields towards one side of it. Water will come up and we sometimes played a game which would later go on to become popularly known as water polo. We didn't grudge the floods. We accepted it calmly and fished when we couldn't play ball. Or we just made waves.
