Little Plastic Men
Some years ago, on a particularly dreary day, one of the guys at work had an idea. We were probably at lunch (I can't really remember) so there was (more than likely in those days) beer involved. At some point in the proceedings he dropped the "S" word into the conversation. That is, Subbuteo. I can't remember which of my mates had the brainwave (I know it wasn't me) but we all agreed with him.
It sounded a cunning plan; football in miniature, powered by beer and boyish enthusiasm. We had (more) evenings of drunken behaviour to gain and nothing (but a few pounds for a team) to lose. There and then we formed a league; within days we'd hunted round the local toy shops and bought teams.
Our clubs were named with either the first thing that popped into our heads or some long thought up moniker. We named and numbered the players, pasted green cloth pitches to chipboard and prepared ourselves for evenings fuelled with the subtle flick of finger against plastic.
The league had a logo, rules, even a newsletter with complete match reports once the season started. Nothing could stop the march of the Little Plastic Men. Life was good (even if my prowess on the pitch was not; I played table football as badly, or worse than, the real thing.
The first season sped by. Before I knew it the wooden spoon of defeat was clasped in my hand whilst someone else held aloft the championship trophy. A second season loomed, again I failed to win a match. But I didn't care. It was the fun of playing it, the whole experience. Not to go Thirtysomething it was a bonding experience. We were all mates anyway, this added to it though. And it allowed us to bring others into our tight group.
But all good things, as they say, come to an end. And like the road to hell it was good intentions that proved our undoing.
In hindsight I think we'd bitten off more than we could chew; we'd attempted to play Subbuteo for twenty four hours for charity. For such an undertaking you need a positive mental attitude; copious amounts of Stella Artois and vegetable chilli just don't have the same effect.
Twenty fours of bending over a table, flicking plastic around, forcing concentration through that brain-addled barrier that occurs at 3AM. Come the morning and our fingers were sore, our backs were aching, our spirits were weak. In the cold hard light of day came the realisation that we just didn't have the stomach to play the game any more. We needed a break after such exertion.
And so we went on hiatus. The teams were boxed up, the newsletters were quietly filed away, the batteries from the floodlights were reinserted into the remote control. Time passed, things happened. It was forgotten, no-one spoke about it. Dust fell lightly on my little green boxes, forgotten in a cupboard, playing no more.
Real life took over as real life is wont to do. A photo on a poster on a wall shows us smiling at our feat, whereas now two of the guys don't talk any more (to each other I mean). Another (for all intents and purposes) disappeared. One I see regular, he's still at work. The rest of us meet now and again, but the "S" word is never mentioned.
And where am I going with all this? Well..
It sounded a cunning plan; football in miniature, powered by beer and boyish enthusiasm. We had (more) evenings of drunken behaviour to gain and nothing (but a few pounds for a team) to lose. There and then we formed a league; within days we'd hunted round the local toy shops and bought teams.
Our clubs were named with either the first thing that popped into our heads or some long thought up moniker. We named and numbered the players, pasted green cloth pitches to chipboard and prepared ourselves for evenings fuelled with the subtle flick of finger against plastic.
The league had a logo, rules, even a newsletter with complete match reports once the season started. Nothing could stop the march of the Little Plastic Men. Life was good (even if my prowess on the pitch was not; I played table football as badly, or worse than, the real thing.
The first season sped by. Before I knew it the wooden spoon of defeat was clasped in my hand whilst someone else held aloft the championship trophy. A second season loomed, again I failed to win a match. But I didn't care. It was the fun of playing it, the whole experience. Not to go Thirtysomething it was a bonding experience. We were all mates anyway, this added to it though. And it allowed us to bring others into our tight group.
But all good things, as they say, come to an end. And like the road to hell it was good intentions that proved our undoing.
In hindsight I think we'd bitten off more than we could chew; we'd attempted to play Subbuteo for twenty four hours for charity. For such an undertaking you need a positive mental attitude; copious amounts of Stella Artois and vegetable chilli just don't have the same effect.
Twenty fours of bending over a table, flicking plastic around, forcing concentration through that brain-addled barrier that occurs at 3AM. Come the morning and our fingers were sore, our backs were aching, our spirits were weak. In the cold hard light of day came the realisation that we just didn't have the stomach to play the game any more. We needed a break after such exertion.
And so we went on hiatus. The teams were boxed up, the newsletters were quietly filed away, the batteries from the floodlights were reinserted into the remote control. Time passed, things happened. It was forgotten, no-one spoke about it. Dust fell lightly on my little green boxes, forgotten in a cupboard, playing no more.
Real life took over as real life is wont to do. A photo on a poster on a wall shows us smiling at our feat, whereas now two of the guys don't talk any more (to each other I mean). Another (for all intents and purposes) disappeared. One I see regular, he's still at work. The rest of us meet now and again, but the "S" word is never mentioned.
And where am I going with all this? Well..
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