In my childhood, youth and also as a young adult I was totally addicted to football (the European one) and took every opportunity to chase after the round leather ball. Fortunately, my parents had a large enough garden at that time, in which it was possible to put up two some kind of football field, so that I never really had far to go when I wanted to enjoy my favourite sport.
During my life, of course, I have tried other sports, with more or less success, but always with a great deal of fun.
In the country where I grew up, almost everything was in short supply, also sports equipment and gear. But if you have a great father, like I had, there is always a way to makethings happen.
And so one day I had a field hockey stick in my hands, and the football field in our backyard was simply repurposed. We found some ball a new game started.
An old Christmas tree was then turned into a baseball bat, and together we hit old tennis balls through the garden. Unfortunately, this didn't last long, because soon all the balls were scattered in the neighbors' gardens and our game came to an abrupt end. We didn't know the rules anyway, but where there's fun, there's a way.
We also found some old tennis rackets, they were from our grandmothers and had seen better days. But for our purposes they were just right, and on our once again converted football field we then competed against each other on behalf of our tennis heroes of that time. As long as we had balls!
At that time winter wa still cold, so we went to the street or to the lake, which was all frozen at that time, in order to play ice hockey. Of course without goals and often without skates. Only sticks were easy to find.
I always remained faithful to football and played in a club for many years. To be honest, my career was more like a book that probably shouldn't be written. Our record is indescribably negative, but since my brother and several friends were in my team, that was no problem at all. The important thing was to have fun and be in a good mood. And despite the many defeats, there was a lot of that.
Of course, I went to the stadium countless times. Union Berlin was a matter of the heart for me as a boy and as an young adult. Now that I'm half though, I see things from a different angle and my priorities have shifted. But I'm really happy that Union made it into the Bundesliga and even earned themselves a second season up there. And they are doing quit alright.
Okay...that was the first round on the subject of "Me and Sports". Please stay tuned in for the second part.
