Other Stuff I Missed From London

There are plenty of things, people or stuff I've missed from London. Especially people. Whilst living in London, I had endless games of football played with friends and strangers. That's the special thing about London and football, I guess. No matter who you are, or how old...everyone plays football.

I remember having matches with a bunch of old guys, they were actually in their late twenties and early thirties. Anyway, my friends and I had an average age of 12 and funnily enough, the older guys let us play with them. The match was really full of laughs...I mean you get to see twelve year olds making a fool out of men.

Then there were the French. Those bastards were technically brilliant. Their first touch and swagger on the ball could get you fooled three times in a row...except for me of course. Anyway, they were all students of Lycee de Francaise and their game tactic was: humiliate and annihilate. And they really did. They were the same age as us, but had amazingly good ball control and their height made them look much more intimidating.

My friends were the hip hop crew of footie. They listened to hip hop and rap, but danced past opponents like waltzing through a cotton field. They were the ones who really taught me loads of stuff on footie. They were show-boaters...no doubt, but honestly if you had the ability to dribble past your opponents whilst juggling the ball, I'm sure you'd do the same. Street flair was what I'd call it. Endless tricks with 'up yours' attitude, these guys were really cool. They were often joking and messing about, but hey life needs abit of cheering up right? They usually took me aside and showed me tricks like round the worlds non-stop or juggling whilst on your backside. I really missed them.

Finally, the jokers. Not what you think...they were actually Mongolian monks. But they were f**king brilliant. They really knew how to harnesh and focus the chee onto the ball and past the goalkeeper. Their focus chee levels could make them control a bullet of a ball and stop it dead in the tracks of their feet. They worked wonders as a team. They knew how to communicate and their passing was telekenetic...they knew where their players were and could release the ball quickly into the path of an unmarkered player.

Me schoolmates played football matches with other schools. I was the right winger or attacking midfielder. In the past, I could out run anyone...before puberty of course, when everybody hit that stage I slowed down dramatically beacuse everyone developed natural muscles and stuff. Anyway, due to my small size and youthful confidence, I was able to run past opponents and lose the ball quickly. Anyway, usually we played matches against other schools with goal-posts made of jumpers on the floor...so we usually made the goal smaller whenever the referee wasn't looking.

Anyway I remember my first match. I was the right winger and my job was to protect the flank and whip in crosses. I remembered getting a yellow card for a lunge at someone, but the thing I remembered most was my assist. It was the dying few minutes and I ended up in the left flank, for some reason. I remember just kicking that bloody ball to the end of the pitch then some idiot tackled me cleanly. Fortunately the ball rebounded of my shin and I swang at it hoping for some kind of miracle and it happened to go to the path of the striker who just let loose a canon of a shot and the keeper saved the ball from inside the line.

Those were the days...now of course in Singapore, guys are more egotistic. They wanna humiliate you without grace or sportmanship. Also the attitude of people here don't really make the game anymore fun. That's why loads of my friends in Singapore prefer playing amongst friends. But that's life...it sucks but what are you gonna do about it?