Football memories still run in my blood. Today, I talked about football with my new neighbors who are themselves football fanatics. The conversation brought back great memories of my youthful days playing football.
As a man, I hardly have the time to see a football match or participate in it because of business engagements, but any time I have an occasion to discuss football events with friends, fond memories of my childhood and youthful days playing football always come to mind.
Football has been my favorite sport right from the time I knew how to run. As children, we played with anything that was kickable as a ball, barefooted on any available open space. While in primary school, I was drafted to join the school team when I was in primary 4. Though I was small in size, our sports teacher saw the potential I had and made me join the big boys for training. I excelled at every position I was given for a trial, played as a number 9, attacking midfield and goalkeeper. I played in those three positions interchangeably for the school team.
The goalkeeping position was where I excelled most during my primary school days. While in secondary school, I played as a striker for the school team and was made the sports prefect at the time. Football was like food to me back then. I played in the local government championship for my unit, played as a goalkeeper in a local football club, and participated in many other memorable events.
As a man, I came to love Chelsea football club majorly because of Didier Drogba and Mikel at that time. I still have my love for the Blues today although I hardly have time to watch Premier League matches. However, I follow their news on the internet and newspapers.
There was a day I will never forget while playing football. I was around 14 years at the time, and it was a street football game where I featured as a goalkeeper. In the match, our opponents were outplaying my team and making us concede goals. I decided to swap positions and play as the top striker to help the team score more to win the game. I managed to score 3 consecutive goals that put us in the lead.
But something terrible happened that day. Our opponents saw how I was causing problems for their goalkeeper and decided to gang mark me. It was a horrible experience as three defenders gave me a terrible tackle all at the same time to stop me from scoring another goal. It was to be a header goal, but instead of going for the ball, they all went for me and caused me to land with my skull on the hard ground. I didn't know what happened after that. I woke up next in the hospital. That was the time I stopped playing street football.
Those memories of football, both sweet and bitter, remain with me today. Though business life has taken over, my passion for the beautiful game continues to live in my heart.
The image used is AI generated.
This is my submission for today's prompt in the #febuaryinleo daily writing challenge.