Anyone who has clicked through to look at my “Run O’Hare Run” page may have noticed that alongside my record of my running exploits I have added the comment “+ cage football on Saturday” in the entries for the last couple of weeks. I thought I would explain what this is.
Most Saturday mornings at the moment are taken up ferrying my younger daughter to her football matches for Phoenix City under-14s and then watching these games unfold. However, when there is no match, as has been the case for the last couple of weekends, some of the players in her team together with their manager/coach and a few of us old men (Dads) get together in one of those small cages that house a concrete pitch, a couple of basketball goals and a couple of open areas that serve as football goals. We then spend an hour or so running around like mad things, the girls practising their skills and the Dads trying to regain their lost youth. It’s brilliant fun – if I played football with just a bunch of men I’d be instantly mashed to pieces, but against the girls it’s possible to run around a bit, demonstrate those silky ball skills (though mine do then to occur in slow motion) and even score the odd goal or two (though my shots do have a frustrating tendency to go straight at the ‘keeper). Mind you, it’s not without no physical content – the girls are pretty good at the odd kick in the shins and it’s good to see (and experience) them beginning to get the hang of barging opposition players out of the way and trying out some of the dark arts of holding and shoving. It’s also really, really good exercise (for me). In fact two weeks ago I almost managed to reduce myself to complete physical incapacity within the space of 10 minutes – and quickly learned the lesson to pace myself better last time.
Anyway, that’s cage football.
Tim O'Hare 