I once kicked a former professional football player so hard he threatened to throw up on me. It’s not a praiseworthy claim to fame, but it’s the best I’ve got.
On a holiday with a few friends in Turkey, a local barman – mistaking us for bona-fide players – invited us to play against his football side.
A day and a 40-mile bus journey later, we found ourselves in the only five-a-side arena I’ve ever seen that had a stand for spectators. And we were facing an unnervingly professional-looking outfit with more backroom staff than players.
Even more unsettlingly, and bizarrely, a handful of spectators exchanged lira for cloakroom tickets as they passed the entrance gate.
As with every five-a-side game ever played, the encounter swiftly moved from a friendly, casual affair to a World Cup final pace – in determination, if not speed or actual talent – though there was quality on show.
The opposition striker was a small, overweight, middle-aged man who played annoying skilful one-touch football, refusing to move more than two feet for any pass. He was an inviting target for those of us more used to GAA-style tackling.
A few goals and minor scuffles later, we retired, satisfied the Irish nation had not been disgraced in a country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.
It was a further boost to discover the local wizard was a 10-year veteran of one of Turkey’s greatest football clubs, Galatasaray, though the magic was diluted when our barman added ruefully, “You should see him sober.”
The occasion launched a thousand conversations, jokes and memories – and it was this bonding potential that accompanies a team sport that prompted soccer correspondent Emmet Malone, a few years ago, to kick-off a lunchtime game for workers in The Irish Times: a four/five/ six/whatever-number-turn-up-a-side weekly match bringing colleagues, who normally operate on different floors and sections, together for an hour once a week.
Five-a-side, of course, is also a pretty amazing workout.
At the University of Copenhagen, a 2010 study found a casual kickabout could be as effective as a running-based training programme.
"Recreational football is a highly intermittent sport with numerous brief intense actions, including sprinting, turning, jumping, tackling and shooting, interspersed with low-intensity activities," said Prof Peter Krustrup, who led the study.
“It’s essentially a whole-body, interval-training workout, without having to enlist a personal trainer or spend thousands of pounds on gym equipment.”
It can also temporarily turn a normally compassionate, forgiving and quiet colleague into a ferocious, no-nonsense powerhouse.
And perhaps the major advantage of five-a-side games is that age and ability are usually only minor obstacles – certainly not enough to prohibit participation.
Thankfully.
Our weekly game has attracted every class of player. And you couldn’t have found three more different than Sean, Brian and Carl.
Despite playing well into his 50s, Sean was able to tap into experience and a canny knack of knowing when to spend five minutes between the posts (an honoured tradition among five-a-side games where everyone is a goalkeeper) – and conserving energy for the final frantic minutes of play, when the game was inevitably always up for grabs.
Even when one side was dominating, someone was bound to announce: “Next goal is the winner.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Brian was young, fast, skilful, and playing regularly in higher quality matches .
At 36, Carl can be placed somewhere in between, a few years past prime on a pitch, but regularly turning it on when the game was for the taking. He could find the net with (depending on which side you were on) annoying or wonderful frequency.
All three were members of the weekly game in The Irish Times, though workload and shift patterns interfered frequently for many.
All three have died over the past 15 months: Sean Flynn, former education editor in January of last year; Brian Morrissey, with the marketing and advertising department, at Christmas; and sports writer Carl O'Malley, just a few weeks ago, after taking ill while playing football.
The impact pales in comparison to how their untimely deaths devastated their families, but each loss rocked their colleagues and team-mates to the core.
The day after Carl’s recent funeral earlier this month, the two teams assembled as usual: silent conversations interspersed with little else apart from head shaking.
And then the game kicked off.
The pace quickly moved up a gear until, as usual, an all-important, everything-on-the-line hour-long encounter broke out. It felt appropriate.
DAMIAN'S STATS
Age: 39
Height: 6ft
Weight: 16st 2lb (-5lb)
BMI: 30.4 (no change)
Fat: 29.4% (-0.2)
Brackets indicates change (since March 10th, 2015)
