Custom House arranged a friendly match tonight instead of a normal training session and the manager and club secretary were not going to be there, so it was going to be left to me and Ritchie to take the reins – Ritchie as the manager and me as the man responsible for bringing footballs and collecting money after the game.

As it turned out BOTH the manager and the secretary turned up after all, so I was going to sit back and watch some of my new players for my new team next season perform. Well that was until the other team didn’t have enough players to field a full side so I was offloaded to them.

Considering my leg was hurting I put in a very good performance in centre back, and despite going up against very fast strikers I managed to handle them with some ease. I was sacked at half time (politely told my services were no longer required) as they took Scott and Chris Whitfield, but I was promptly rehired 10 minutes into the second half when two of their players dropped out.

One of the young players tried to embarrass me by doing loads of step overs, I responded by doing the same thing while pretending I had a ball.

It felt good playing out on pitch again and despite the talent our first team has I didn’t disgrace myself playing against them.

Looks like I will be able to fill two positions next season when I sign on as a player for the new team I’m managing. 🙂

On the way home my leg really started giving me trouble, so much so that I had to get off the train at Mile End and jump in a black cab the rest of the way home. The bastard driver was chuckling as he lowered the ramp as I was trying to get out without putting weight on my leg.

Photo by John Hartley from FreeImages