My kinda town

I played football at the crack of dawn this morning. 8 o'clock kick off and already the temperature was touching 80.

I reckon its the first time I've played a proper outdoor 11-a-side game with a referee for many a year. This league is also co-ed (mixed) and the standard wasn't great, a lot like my fitness.

We lost 4-0, but the game (honest guv) was a lot closer than the score suggested. A couple of things happened that made me chuckle on the way home. Firstly I was put through onto goal, managed to find a bit of room, looked up and saw their goalkeeper storming off his line, so I attempted to lob the ball over his head.

I was frustrated to see that he jumped up and caught the ball. Shit, I thought until I looked down at the pitch and realised that he was bloody 3-4 yards outside his penalty area.

The referee immediately sent him off, which then almost started a mini riot amongst the opposition players, all American's of course.

"You don't know the rules ref." "He can do that, he was only protecting himself." "Goal tenders can't be sent off." "Come on ref, you haven't got a fucking idea, you need to read FIFA's rules." The guy who screamed this was also given his marching orders!

I just looked bemused, pissed off that it should have been a goal and flabbergasted that the ref and I were probably the only people on the pitch that did in fact know the rules.

Then late on at a corner, this a true story, a bird on the other team asked me where I was from. I told her and we introduced ourselves and then she said: "I could make out with you right now, your accent is so sexy."

At the final whistle she completely wrapped her arms around me and told me we could go into the bushes! That never happened at Catford Boys, I can tell you!