Often associated with a fat bloke tripping over the ball, and pitches that look more like cow pastures than anything. Sunday morning football is certainly an experience, an experience that I couldn't recommend enough. Having played at the highest level all my life I'd already achieved everything I'd aimed to achieve out of football. At least that's what I thought... I've grown up watching my dad play since I was a literal baby, I've followed him throughout his career, he taught me everything I know. But there was one thing left to check off the metaphorical list, and that was play together. So, at the age of 14, with the help of a fake ID I signed for the same team as my father. Playing against grown men was definitely a challenge but playing the game I love the most with my father, was, and likely always will be one of the greatest moments of my life.
From providing him with assists, to competing with him for the Top Scorer award (We actually finished the season tied and ended up sharing the award). My time in Sunday league football was a special one and frankly I miss it. Not just the football itself, but the jokes, the friendships, the freedom. Sunday league football is a fantastic representation of English culture, the good, the bad, and the outright ugly (and no I'm not talking about the fat bloke from earlier).
6-0 down at half time..."Don't worry lads we've got the wind this half" - Optimistic Teammate
With it being such a staple of English and European society, it feels odd that it has no equivalent across the rest of the world, especially here in the United States. Sure, there are amateur leagues that are played on a Sunday, but 'Sunday League' isn't about the day it's played on. In fact, that's probably it's least relevant factor, it's about the interactions it creates. In Sunday league your forced to interact with new people of all ages, you learn about the ways of the world from different perspectives. Yes, it's about football, but if you've read any of my other blogs you will understand that it's never JUST about football.
If you look below, you will see a video of me jumping into what some would call a small lake, that lake was in fact a pitch we were due to play on. It's safe to say I wasn't keen on this idea, and neither were the rest of the team, yet to our surprise the game went ahead. 90 minutes, and a hattrick from myself later, I walked off that pitch, dripping with mud and rain, and thought to myself "well if I can get through that, what can't I get through?". And that in a nutshell is Sunday league football, it's a learning experience.
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