To be cool at school, you have to play sports. Right?
School days, eh? Hmm.

I was pretty quiet. Close circle of friends, more likely to blend into the background than be the one stood at the front doing impressions of the head. I was fairly studious, but not a complete girly swot. A couple of specialist subjects, the rest, reasonably OK. Maths was always a bit of a twat, until 2nd year in high school when I was taught by probably the best maths teacher I had ever had (and therefore by default one of the best teachers full stop). I could have left high school with much better grades, but at the age of 14, when choosing options, went with the ones that most of my mates seemed to be doing rather than the subjects that I stood any real chance of doing bloody well in, such as Latin and German. Oh no, I went with physics and geography, ffs. I HATED physics and geography. Listen to your parents, kids - they really do mostly know what's best for you.

So, yeah, back on track. This all round general averageness with occasional bright spots also translated into sports. I did excel at certain athletics (middle distance track events, and the long jump, for some reason). But everyone knows that to be really cool you had to be good at football.

I wasn't. I sucked big time. I enjoyed it, but was never really much good, although I threw myself into it with enthusiasm, usually ending up on the right wing because I at least had a bit of pace about me. So one PE lesson, we were down to play 5-a-side in the gym. The usual process was for the teacher to select 4 boys to pick teams, and as might be expected they'd try to get all of the really good players before having to take pity on the dross that was left. The selection process meant that I was left on a team of probably the least athletic kids in the year. There was big Paul - a 14 stone collossus; Pug, a small, bespectacled lad with an explosion of freckles; Dave, a painfully shy kid who every time he opened his mouth to speak made a noise exactly like a creaking door; and another whose name has long since been consigned to distant memory. Oh, and me. Collectively, we had the footballing ability of a group of heavily drugged monkeys wearing boots that were 4 sizes too big. This wasn't going to be pretty.

We were up first. Against a team that contained Woody and Scotty, probably two of the best players in the school. They were on the school team, and I could see the smug looks on both their faces as they set themselves up for dishing out a complete pasting to us. It would be like Liverpool vs Berwick Rangers; a competition so one sided that we might as well stay in the dressing room and do trigonometry or swap top trumps.

We elected to kick off, just so we could say we had some possession during the game. Team simian shuffled onto the wooden pitch and looked at each other nervously. The whistle blew. Without thinking much about what I was doing, I turned and hoofed the ball as hard as I could towards the opposition's goal at the far end of the gym… which promptly flew through the keeper's legs and thudded satisfyingly between the painted goalposts.

1-0. Fucking hell. Had to be a fluke. Our opposition looked at us in mild disbelief, obviously steeling themselves to teach us a lesson.

It was a complete and utter massacre. 20 minutes of relentless pressure, running in circles, chasing the ball up the pitch, picking out teammates with a deftness that would make some current professionals cry and hang up their boots in shame, goals flying in a-plenty.

We won. 5-0 in the end. Another fluke goal from me; one in off the arse of Paul; a complete miss-kick from Dave that somehow tricked the keeper into going the wrong way; and a sublime strike from the edge of the penalty area from Pug. Who, frankly, couldn't believe it either.

We were Gods that day. Gods!
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:25, 2 replies)

Woo for the Underdog Victory!
(Says a Leicester supporter!)

I remember being in a similar position at the age of 9 or 10: loved playing football but barely had the foot-eye coordination to kick the thing. Generally quite useless, until people worked out the benefit of putting the tallest kid in the school in defence and telling him just to run at the forwards. Who were all, strangely, much smaller than I was.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:53, closed)

This happened to me too
except i was on the other team.
It was a lovely summers day and we had double PE outside and played against a team we should have soundly thrashed. we lost, somethings around 11-2 on a full size pitch. Even the Malcolm Riggott, the most shy person in our year scored and celebrated infront of Dean the hard nut with some wrestling x-pac-man hands type gesture. We learnt a lesson that day - don't get stoned before double PE.
Well done though.
( MagicallyInept Bored Sig., Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:48, closed)