My life is made of football

When I'm not stressing about the destruction of the house, or whether I've remembered to send LittleBear to school in odd socks, or wearing pyjamas, or with cakes, or whether it's this week or next that I have to go to a meeting about SATs, my life is largely made of football.

This comes in many sizes and shapes.

BigBear has always been a Proper Football Fan, and he managed to harness my innate competitive streak to get me co-opted into watching the Beautiful Game. This means that my weekends have been preoccupied with football matches and results for over a decade.

LittleBear, being alarmingly like his mother, also has a disturbingly competitive streak, and once exposed to sport as a small boy, has been inseparable from all competitive sports. He will quite happily (if allowed) sit and watch cricket, rugby, darts, snooker, F1, but above all football. LittleBear also spends, as far as I can tell, every single break-time at school playing football. When the garden is not strewn with various disassembled sections of house, he will cajole me into it to play football with him come rain or shine. And now, to truly rejoice his little heart, he plays for the local under-7s team. Naturally, this also involves training sessions.

Which is how it came to pass that I rushed him home from school on Friday, wrestled him into his football kit, drove to the next village over... and spent an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

Which is also how it came to pass that not long after 9 o'clock this morning we were cycling through the village while everyone else seemed to still be sensibly tucked up warm indoors... so I could spend an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

This was followed with a detour to a cafe to fill up my insulated mug with coffee, buy a chocolate cake for LittleBear and ride over to the other side of the village for an under-7s match... where I got to spend an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

Fear not, kind readers, my day of football was still not complete. LittleBear had a splendid time, and won the "Player of the Week" trophy, and once home we needed to undertake a thorough post-match analysis, re-enacting corner-kicks, shots on goal and defensive manoeuvres with some Playmobil penguins.

But still my day had time for more football. The three of us headed down to the village football club to watch the proper grown-up team play. This time I got to sit in the freezing cold, watching someone other than LittleBear play football. And for an hour it was great fun, with plenty of chances to point out to LittleBear what the players were doing and why. LocalTeam were 3-0 up and then one of the opposition players went down. And stayed down. And didn't move. And didn't move. And various managers and physios ran onto the pitch, and ran off again. And a stretcher was brought on, but still the player stayed down.

Nobody tried to put him on the stretcher.

Over the tannoy, the announcer asked if there was a doctor in the ground.

All the players left the pitch.

The player on the ground was draped in as many coats and blankets as they could find.

At last, the match was officially abandoned as the club waited for an ambulance to arrive, with the injured player apparently having suffered a serious back injury*. It was a sobering moment, and a stark reminder, possibly LittleBear's first, that football is only a game, and that there are things that matter so much more than winning and losing.


* I am relieved to report that the following was tweeted this evening, by the opposition team, "Good news from the hospital, Player has had X-rays on his spine and pelvis; thankfully no break in either."