February 26th 2007
Went for my first 'kick about' yesterday evening, with a bunch of really friendly guys from Citta della Pieve. Or at least I thought it would be a kick about, as that's what I'm used to. This was training. Proper training, with one guy telling the rest of us what to do; jumping over bars, stretching, sprinting, stretching, shooting practice, stretching, and on and on for a good half hour before we even got to kick a ball. I was very keen to make a good impression, but fell rather short of my expectations. I am old enough to have fathered many of the other players, so I have to keep that in mind, and I must keep at it to help improve my Italian. The problem is that the 'banter' is so fast and so furious that I understand less than one word out of every twenty, so I just grin a lot and try to pass the ball carefully. I now play football with the world champions - that's enough for now.
New pitch - new rules
The stupidest thing I did yesterday;
Went to football with a ball, but without the essentials; plastic slippers, hooded dressing gown, hair drier and dictionary
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