Ah, Inter-House Football
Come Year 9, our House (not in the middle of our street) had been undefeated in football. In Year 7, we went into our final game against the only other unbeaten House and came away with a convincing 7-0 romp. We'd retained our crown in Year 8, so Year 9 was to be a walk in the park we thought.

Now, round about this time of year those Year 9s that had opted to take German as a second language lesson (in lieu of their second weekly lesson on PE) had engaged on an exchange programme, as so many schools make them do. One of the girls in our Year had taken delivery of, as Alan Partridge may have described, "a 14-year-old scorcher". This Fräulein was 14 going on 17, and had the confident air of a girl three years older than her alloted age. It was obvious she put out, what with her mascara-ed eyes, her shock of dyed red hair, her skinny jeans, slim figure and breasts that seemed to say "Hey, look at these...". And I had the (mis)fortune (whichever way you choose to look at it) in seeing her on the school bus every morning and afternoon, as her English exchange girl lived in the same village as me.

As your atypical awkward 14-year-old boy, I was besotted, but would and could never even attempt to express any interest in her. I would see her casual flirting with the older, GCSE boys on the bus, talking loudly in her heavily Teutonically-accented English (women with foreign accents is still an incredible turn-on to me) and singing along to her Walkman (remember them?) Oh, if only I had the confidence some of the other lads did...

So, back to Inter-House football. Our school had recently had the genius stroke of playing House matches over lunch times due to a) the length of the matches (whether rugby or football) being longer than a standard lesson, and b) the fact that other pupils would actually want to watch. Our first game kicked off just before lunch, and a quarter of an hour in, with the game still goalless, our first spectators began to arrive. Including the exchange students.

I espied the object of my temporary teenage crush patrolling the perimeter of the pitch and thought to myself that the only way I could impress her was to play really well and make her think that I was a shit-hot footballer (as opposed to a shit footballer). As I'd been positioned up front in this game, I had the opportunity of getting myself on the scoresheet - perhaps she could see me scoring a wundergoal...?

So it arose; I followed a gorgeously weighted ball over the top and found myself in on goal. The 'keeper had anticipated this ball and had rushed out to meet it. My pace brought me to the ball quicker than he, and I was able to lob the ball over his head and skirt around him. The trajectory of the ball meant that it landed marginally in front of the six-yard box to the left of the goal, so all I had to do was knock the ball into the empty net. As I bore down I saw the German apple of my eye perambulating behind the goal with her fellow exchange friends. She looked round to see me in my moment of glory and our eyes met. I connected with the ball, which caused the net to bulge theatrically, and having taken my eye off what I was doing, proceeded to collide squarely with the goalpost and rebound off with a woody ‘slap’ and land heavily, dazed, and confused on the sodden earth.

Every time she saw me on the bus for the next week-and-a-half, she'd let out a little Hunnish giggle. I've always been suspicious of Germans since...
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Tue 24 Nov 2009, 9:46, Reply)