Just Futsalling Around

Well after my previous triumphant entry about the achievements of our corporate soccer team things have dropped off a little on the casual football front.  Sadly we couldn't reproduce our efforts in the next season.  Now, while we wait for another competition we've been playing futsal instead.  This is a kind of indoor soccer on a hard surface.  It's fast, played on a smaller surface and I'm at least as bad at it as I am at the more traditional outdoor soccer.

Still I'm finding it quite enjoyable and we've actually notched up a couple of wins.  This is despite the fact that two of our star players have come down with an acute attack of pregnancy which hasn't helped our cause.  I try not to blame them, I'm sure they didn't do it to deliberately inconvenience us.  Instead I am attributing our sudden futsal resurgence to the fact that I have returned from holidays and am once again taking my place in our sadly truncated team.  Fortunately we are blessed with skilled players (no, not me idiots, other players) who can carry us forward to victory or at least make contact with the ball occasionally.  My sole contribution so far has been to stick my foot out in an attempt to prevent the opposition scoring.  The ball rolled over my foot and straight into the goal.

We play on an inconveniently located basketball court which appears to exist because the construction of flats, a motorway and parkland accidentally left a small patch of ground that nobody could figure out what to do with.  So they could claim to be providing the community with services the local authorities nailed a couple of iron rings to convenient poles and called it a basketball court.  Some signposts would also have been useful  On one occasion we almost forfeited because we couldn't actually find the venue.  Normally I would follow Caroline who is our team organiser and general administrative person but since our employers relocated her department to a flat above a bar I don't bump into her as often as I used to.

Still logistical and directional difficulties notwithstanding our team has managed to present itself for competition each Thursday and by each Thursday I mean the two or three occasions when we've actually been able to play.  The basketball court is outdoors which means there was about a month when our "indoor" soccer was cancelled due to the rain.

I have no idea how deep we are into the competition or where my (or any other team) is placed.  All I do know is we need to play a couple more games before we get the matches played/matches cancelled ratio into balance.  As I'm writing this (in my lunch break, honestly) I'm staring out my office window at the leaden skies that are hanging around ominously threatening rain.  On the one hand playing on asphalt does mean the ground dries quicker, on the other hand its a bugger to fall on.