I’m sure we’ve all grown up kicking a ball around in the streets, or local park, or even the back lane.
If it was the back lane, our garage doors were the goal posts. A luxury really, as we had an actual pretend bar. No arguing over whether it was too high or it would have gone in or not! If it was the park, ‘jumpers for goal posts’ and all that, we would sometimes drag council bins over to become make-shift goal posts.
I remember in the school yard, we sometimes had to resort to using a tennis ball, as no-one had brought in a ‘proper’ sized footy. Unbeknownst to us, a tennis ball was excellent for honing our ball control, and when next we used a larger ball, skills became so much easier after having got used to a smaller ball.
On occasion, the tennis ball would split in half, but this didn’t deter us, because using a halved tennis ball became hilarious, as you could deliberately kick the ball in the ‘wrong’ direction, so that it curled around in a large arc, and get to where you originally intended to kick it! You had to be there!
If there wasn’t even a broken tennis ball - fear not - as we invented ‘coke football.’
We’d pinch a decent-sized piece of coke from the caretaker’s pile of fuel for feeding the boiler, and we had an endless supply of ‘footballs’. If the piece split and broke under a crunching tackle, there was a large heap of the stuff to keep us supplied! Happy days.
**Street Football Rules As A Kid**
* The fattest kid was always in goal (and probably picked last)
* The person whose ball it was, decides who plays.
* Penalties are only awarded if there was a broken leg.
* The match only ends when the person whose ball it is, has to go in for their dinner (or bed)
* Even if your team is winning 29 - 0, the winner is always determined by ‘next goal wins.’
* No referee.
* If nobody has a football, a can will do.
* If you were picked last, you had no hope in life.
* Whoever kicks it over a fence or into a garden, has to go and get it.
* Getting the ball stuck under a car was the most stressful part of life.
And life was a happier place!