Thursday 08 April 2010, 15:02
Giving up playing football is one of those things that just sort of happens to you. It’s a bit like giving up having even the vaguest idea who is No1 in the charts, or if the charts even still exist, or...
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Thursday 01 April 2010, 16:03
One of the big things about playing football is that you instantly take your place in an unarguable hierarchy of talent. People often say football is all about opinions. This is only half true. Watching...
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Thursday 25 March 2010, 12:57
In one very specific way, playing amateur football is a lot like travelling on the London Tube network: it’s a miracle the whole thing goes off as peacefully as it does. Playing football may never involve...
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Thursday 18 March 2010, 16:31
In theory there are no tactics when you play Sunday league football, or five-a-side, or any type of football that involves normal men for whom the basic nuts and bolts of being able to run and kick and...
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Friday 12 March 2010, 10:55
When you play amateur football, your gear really shouldn’t matter. What is your kit, after all, but a fig leaf with which you mask the flubbering, triple-bellied nudity of your basic technical deficiencies...
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Friday 05 March 2010, 09:48
If you’re in any way serious about it, playing football usually turns out to be a surprisingly intense business. Sunday league, five-a-side or even a pick-up park match - they all engage your senses aggressively...
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Thursday 25 February 2010, 12:04
In September 2009 Harraby Athletic of the Cumbrian junior amateur leagues beat Edenvale Hawks 3-2, ending a three-year losing streak. By this point Harraby were already being talked up by some as Britain...
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Thursday 18 February 2010, 21:37
Kicking off a brand new series on amateur football, Barney Ronay starts with the gaffer Managing an amateur football team is a bit like being the despotic leader of a very small and turbulent rogue state...
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