Ben Machell on trying (and failing) to have a football-free summer
I’ve been doing my best to not think about football over the summer. Doing my best to purge my tiny mind of anything to do with it. Given that for most of the year at least 90 per cent of my psychological bandwidth is devoted to niggly little Twitter beefs about team formations and low-level anxiety about Leeds United, it seemed like a good idea to step away and focus on other things. Like, I dunno, regularly washing myself. Or caring for my children.
It’s been hard, though. For one thing, I’ve been taking my son to a football class on Saturday mornings. And I’ve realised that what I want more than anything else in life is to win the respect of the two guys who run it, Dee and Amon. They’re obviously both really good at football — bandy-legged and lean — and every dad in attendance obviously feels the same way. Some of them attempt ostentatious bits of skill in the hope of catching their eye, which is risky, particularly when they end up accidentally booting their own child in the head. Which has happened.
Other dads sidle up and try to chat football tactics, as if they’re somehow going to arrange a dozen demented toddlers into a fluid counter-attacking system. No. I’m going to bide my time and wait for an opportunity to impress them. Easier said than done, though, when you spend half the session chasing your cackling child with a potty.
Also, and this is kind of bizarre, somebody has been plastering Huddersfield Town stickers in and around my street in Hackney. I can’t leave the house without seeing one on a street sign or wall. Arsenal? Spurs? I could understand that. But Huddersfield? It makes no sense. How am I meant to clear my mind of football when confronted with this? Are you the mystery Huddersfield fly-poster of Hackney? I’m going to crack this. Tip-offs appreciated.
Finally, only the other day I was walking through the park when a group of lads playing in a football cage called out, asking me to kick their ball back to them. Normally, I hate these moments — the pressure, the ironic applause when you totally spoon it — but on this occasion, I just returned it beautifully. There was a chorus of angels as it landed, with a soft smack, at the lads’ feet. I keep thinking about it. Obsessing. I couldn’t stop if I tried.