Business of Sport: Astro football is becoming more and more popular, not least for all those of us who believe we could have been contenders and just got distracted by work and women and drink.

Ring colleges to inquire about booking halls or pitches and you will be met with incredulity that you're even asking. "If I had a pound for every time I got an inquiry to book the hall for football I'd be a millionaire by now," says the TCD Sports Hall receptionist.

With such a boom, it's not surprising a company has commercialised the game. The Astro Soccer League, founded in 1996 by three Cork lads - Terence O'Halloran, Karl Gibney and Ronan Power - has expanded to over 900 teams involving up to 30,000 people in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Belfast and now London.

"We started our league in 1996 after coming up to Dublin," says O'Halloran, "and then in 1999 the company was founded."

Organisation has been the key to success, he says, and the company has developed a six-a-side ground at St Benildus College, Stillorgan, and is developing an 11-a-side one off the M50. It costs €75 per team for an 11-a-side game and €50 for five-a-side - and the demand is relentless.

"We have a waiting list of 20 to 30 teams each season," says Helen Hipwell, sales and marketing director, "and it's growing across the country."

But why expand into London, which already has 17 leagues? Because, says O'Halloran, they do it better than anyone else.

"Safety of the players is paramount to the Astro Soccer League and in London some of the leagues don't have good reputations. In less than a year we now have 12 teams and we're looking to form a second division."

Those who thought they once had what it takes to make it to Old Trafford can now dream again of what might have been had things been different.

Take a drive across Dublin, Cork or Limerick during the week and witness the passion 20- to 50-year-olds still have for the game. It's "jumpers for goalposts" in the 21st century.