Sucker punched by touch football

12 months ago I'd pretty much given up on doing anything much more in touch footy. I'd enjoyed playing with the young guys the year before, but it's getting harder and harder to get fit enough to warrant running around. I played NTL 30s and wasn't really fit enough and I had no desire to be a fat old guy on Friday nights.

The club I played at has heaps of coaches or potential coaches so it looked like footy was over and I could look forward to Cheesemaking and brushcutting my weekends away.

Then I got a call from an old mate of mine. He has a slightly obsessive personality and his involvement goes in a cycle. Gets involved, then crazy involved, scouts and analyzes and puts in the sort of care and attention that NBA teams do with a staff of five and a 10 million dollar payroll. Burns out. Rings me and tells me he is never playing/watching/coaching touch again. Has a break. Gets rung up and asked to play/coach after six months. Repeat.

Anyway, he had been badgered by a bunch of young players to come back and coach the Brisbane rep team. He wanted me to be his assistant, partially because I would be happy to do some of the work, but mostly because I'm not crazy like he is and might offer some balance. I never thought I'd get to be involved in a open rep side so I jumped on board.

It was great fun. I got to try out a whole heap of ideas and the players were all talented, easy to coach and good guys. And we won, which is never a bad experience. I really enjoyed the coaching too, the technical aspect of it.

Halfway through the campaign, simon asked me to come down to a meeting of his club, Eagles. He wanted me to get involved there as well. Personally I thought the coaches there would want an ex dodgers player about as much as a dose of the crabs, but I came along. They asked me to help out with the A grade side, doing a bit of technical stuff to back up the coach, which again, sounded like fun. Right up to the point where the coach had to quit for family reasons and I suddenly became head coach of an open mens team.

So now I'm sitting at a cafe waiting for some of the players, to plan out an assault at an A grade title. Reading my notes and thinking that after I said yes to coaching twice without hesitating or thinking, Simon suggested that when QLD come asking, I might try and play a bit more hard to get.


- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Cedlen St,Camp Hill,Australia