Beach Football

Arsene Wenger described Eduardo's goal against Burnley as a 'beach' shot. Which is all well and good but in my experience beach football doesn't involve shots like that at all.

Firstly you turn up at the beach, the outing has been meticulously planned for a couple of weeks, the weather has been glorious in the days building up to the trip and then on that morning the rain lashes down. Unperturbed you ring your mates and come to the conclusion it'll probably brighten up later.

Everyone piles into a couple of cars and you drive to the nearest coast. On arrival the rain has eased up slightly and you have to find a spot on the stony beach in amongst the families wrapped in jumpers huddled around a solitary deckchair behind a futile windbreak. Finding a prime spot you chuck a couple of bags down for goalposts and prepare for a game of three and in.

Then calamity strikes. You've forgotten a ball. You send one of your mates off to one of the cheapy beach shops to get an air flow ball from one of those large string bags hanging outside the shopfront. The wag that he is, he also purchases a 'kiss me quick' hat that must be worn by whoevers in goal.

Then the game can start in earnest. One of you - the one who almost, nearly had a trial with Brentford - tries a screamer form 20 yards which gets caught by the wind and flies into the sea. He refuses to retrieve it. You trudge down to the freezing water pluck the bobbing ball out the sea, roll it in front of you and go on a mazy dribble through sandcastles, patches of seaweed and some unknown brown liquid sinking into the sand before losing the ball as soon as you reach another human being.

The game lasts about 10 minutes until everyone is exhausted from trying to run on the stone and sand surface. This usually coincides with the ball once again being hoofed into the sea by the almost, nearly Brentford trialist. After the match you retire to the nearest pub and watch out the window as your ball floats away to France.

Now that's beach football.

(Originally posted by my new persona on 606 but due to pre-mod pretty much went unnoticed.)