…I wonder what today’s 100 grand a week pay-packet prima donna footballers would have done?…

…it’s not sum’thing that the World’s Footballing generalissimos, FIFA, have mentioned much in the past fifty years, but this ol’ Jurassic at one time was signed for a Scottish First Division football team as a lad… the body mass has expanded fully 50 percent since these more athletic days of my youth… some promise apparently had been ‘spotted’ in my soccer outings with Glasgow United, one of the best ‘bringers-on’ of young football talent back in the day… my instructions were simple enuff… get yerself down to Cathkin Park, the home of Third Lanark F.C., for a bit of training with the squad… for a lad of fifteen, it could not have felt much more exciting… opportunity knocks to get into the professional ranks… I even polished my boots for the training night… and splashed out on a new pair of football shorts… whatever else was gonna happen on my first evening’s training appearance, this boy was kitted out to look the part… snag number one leapt out in the dressing room… the new shorts were a size too tight, and gripped my legs like bluudy elastic… undaunted, I managed to trot out for the warm-up and the exercise routine… snag number two followed soon afterwards… the grass pitch at Cathkin Park was kept for the match days, and we lads were doing our training stuff instead on a nearby practise pitch, which was not covered in grass, but with burnt ash… a not uncommon surface in Glasgow pitches… still not a real problem, until…until… until… the coach declared we were gonna warm up with a series of short sprints… on yer marks… set… go!… I came flying out of the blocks like a bullet, arms pumping, and legs… well… legs tried to pump… but the tightness of the new shorts resulted in what started as an amazing five-yard sprint and instantly transformed into a passable imitation of Superman… a new definition was born for The Flying Scotsman… I landed arms outstretched, legs trailing behind me in midair… and came to an excruciating slide on the ash… my bare arms and legs were cut to bits as the ash bit into the skin… my reaction?… yeez would’ve been proud of me, Mabel… instead of bursting into tears as I prob’ly might have done on a different occasion with the combination of pain and humiliation, in red-misted rage, I ripped at the sides of the offending shorts, loosening up the cloth, and my legs began to move freely… the next series of sprints were mine.!.. all mine, I tell yeez!… the coach put me into the first team the very next Saturday, and I’m not sure if it was because he felt he had  a new ‘flying winger’ in his squad… the ash burns took considerably longer to heal… and even now on a cold day… I wonder what today’s 100 grand a week pay-packet prima donna footballers would have done?… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!