Last year, on the grounds of decrepitude, I gave up contact sports. This was prompted by playing footy one Sunday and finding that I still couldn't walk normally on the Thursday. Thus it was inevitable that I'd subsequently end up representing my village football team. Here you can see the state I was in today, after the game. (Vera says orange suits me but I'm not so sure...)
A student of mine, Marek, is the team captain. They were short of players so he was desperate enough to ask me to play in the semi-final of a summer tournament. My appearance gave the team an age spread of 30 years - at one extreme, a 17 year-old Slovak...and at the other, 47 year-old me.
But I wasn't the worst player on the pitch! And I wasn't the fattest! I covered enough kilometres to know that I won't greet tomorrow morning with any enthusiasm; and knowing I'll scarcely be capable of getting up to make Vera's breakfast, I have already warned Marek that I can't play in tomorrow's final as (fortunately) Jack needs picking up from scout camp half-way through the match.
I'm now lying on the sofa. I've had 400 mg of oral ibuprofen, half a tube of ibuprofen gel and 750 ml of what a Czech beer enthusiast informed me was the very best Czech beer available anywhere. Thus I feel good. However, I suspect that tomorrow my body will resemble the knackered stuff one can't shift at a jumble sale.
