Almanac Short Stories: Futsal

 

 

by Paul Harman

 

Futsal

The referee blew his whistle from the sidelines and the match commenced. The opposition player with the ball at his feet quickly passed it to his teammate. They did the old one-two; they sidestepped my teammates like they were slicing butter and rushed towards me like steaming locomotives. I put my hands out and spread my feet, but from a few metres out the locomotive on the left fired the ball and it rocketed past me into the back of the net. I checked the timeclock at the back of the court when I went to retrieve the ball. The game had been going for 14 seconds. I rolled the ball back to my team in the middle of the court. My teammate Chris was in the centre of the court, already hunched over from chasing the two players. His grey locks spilt down his sides, he took deep heaving breaths as he rested his hands on the top of his pulled-up footy socks and he looked like he was about to have three aneurisms at once.

We kicked off to restart the game; in a tangle of feet we lost possession to one of their defenders who dribbled the ball down the side then flicked it into the middle of the court. There was an opening; the other locomotive pounced, ran a few steps and into the corner of the net the ball went. A minute had passed. 2–0.

‘Guys,’ I pleaded to my already exhausted teammates. ‘A bit of back-up.’

Futsal wasn’t really our game – we were all mates who hung out on the cricket field during the summer months, so I put my hand up to come up with something for us to do together during winter. I had a choice between darts played every Tuesday at the Family Hotel, trivia at the bowling club every Thursday, or table tennis on Monday evenings at the scout hall. I even thought of us playing the chess tournaments that were held on Saturday mornings at the library, but, after I went for a swim at the aquatic centre a few weeks back, I saw a flyer inviting players to form their own teams for a mid-week futsal competition. I thought, why not? So I rang my cricket mates and asked them, ‘What do you think?’

A week later I registered us in fifth division and named our team ‘the Adoraballs.’ I had a friend who ran an embroidery business at her home, so I’d bought a dozen green sports tops and got my friend to sew a soccer ball with a snarling and ferocious mouth onto the front of the top with the words, ‘the Adoraballs,’ sewn on underneath. I handed out the uniforms to the four that turned up for the first game of the new season; there was a mix up with the orders, the tops were too small and our bellies hung out like wrecking balls when we put them on. The rules were that we were allowed five on a court, but if we could only muster three, we would have to forfeit, but we had our four, and so we could play. The team we were playing, the team with the youthful rocket-shooting locomotives, were called ‘the Wrexham Ralphs.’.

The ref blew his whistle to restart the game. One of their players intercepted our pass, he ran at me like he had four legs instead of two and the ball cannoned into the back of the net. 3–0. ‘Maybe I should have chosen darts,’ I thought as I picked up the ball from the back of the net.

My teammates were standing in the middle of the court, hands on hips, red-faced and panting, as I rolled the ball along the ground to them. They were probably thinking I should have chosen darts as well.

Three minutes had passed. Another 33 to go.

The whistle blew and we kicked off. The ball was passed to our opening batsman Walter. He went to kick the ball forward, missed, flew in the air like a drunken ballerina then fell on his arse. The opposition swooped and passed the ball to each other like a pinball as they ran down the court. Seconds later, I was fishing the ball out of the back of the net again.

I hadn’t known how fast-paced a game of futsal was. We were all in our forties, ridiculously unfit and years of indulgence, inactivity and lack of coordination finally caught up with us on Court 2 at the Katoomba aquatic centre. In previous decades we used to be slim, even half fit, but time had taken its toll, brutally in some cases. At least with cricket if you sprinted to the fence to save a boundary and were a bit puffed you could hide at third man or in the slips for a while as you recovered. There was nowhere to hide during a game of futsal. And if you fell on the ground playing cricket, at least you fell onto soft clipped grass. The floor of the futsal court was wooden parquetry and as hard as concrete.

The other team took pity on us in the second half, lent us one of their players and the game petered out. Even so, we didn’t have one shot on goal and lost 18–0. It should have been 30–0. My reflexes kicked in and I made some half-decent saves, more from self-preservation than skill. We shook hands with the victors when the game ended and we were barely able to hobble our way to the chairs at the sides. Once there, we sat in stone-cold silence, too sore to move, too stunned and melancholic to speak. None of us had expected such a hectic workout.

Gradually the voices of pain and sorrow emerged.

‘My knees,’ wailed one of my teammates. ‘My back,’ moaned another. I had landed awkwardly on my elbow in a doomed attempt to save a goal and already it was purple and bruised.

‘What were you fucking thinking, Norman?’ Ronny, who kept wickets for us said to me outside the entrance. We were a circle of misery as we stood by the bus stop, having a smoke before we went home. ‘That was fucked.’

‘Yeah, Norman,’ Walter snorted. ‘It will take me a year to recover from that shit.’

‘We have to think of a strategy.’ I countered. ‘Maybe come up with some forward plays. Get some defence moves going.’

My teammates flung their smokes into the bush in disgust, left me on my own and shuffled into the darkness towards the car park.

‘See you next week then?’ I asked them but I was only talking to myself.

.

The following week I wasn’t sure if any of them were going to turn up. I chatted to the secretary of the organisation after paying the match fees, then one by one, I saw my teammates drift in, the smell of heavily massaged Dencorub and Tiger Balm trailing after them.

We were playing a team called ‘the Misfits’. Their average age looked to be about 22. Male and female; they were as uncoordinated as us and for a while it was a contest. Our off-spinner Carl had been persuaded to play, so we had a full team. The Misfits only had one good player, a thin and athletic type who could run all day, but that was all they needed, and they won 11–0. I could tell as I watched while I was guarding the net they had played together for a while, and while they relied on the one good player to win the game for them, he relied on his teammates just as much with their back up and placement of the ball to set him up for his strikes.

‘We should practise together,’ I said to my teammates as we stood outside by the bus stop, having a cigarette before heading home.

‘Fuck that,’ said Ronny, our fast bowler who’d had a couple of wide shots on goal. ‘I’m still recovering from last week.’

‘Which idiot thought to play futsal,’ Carl moaned between puffs of his cigarette as he rubbed his legs. ‘Thought I was going to die out there.’

My teammates flicked their cigarettes into the ground and went home, leaving me on my own again.

The following week we played a team called ‘Man Chest Hair United’, and lost 16–0. This team didn’t have one good player, they had three and we never stood a chance. The other teams we played seemed to have lots of fun but there was no joy in it for us.

When we were out the front, swallowing anti-inflammatory pills, paracetamols and Advil’s down our throat while we smoked our cigarettes, Chris suggested maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to practise a little bit.

The following Saturday morning we met at the cricket nets at the local park, and instead of cricket balls, bats and wickets, I’d brought a couple of soccer balls, and for thirty minutes, we practised on the grass by the nets, completing some basic moves and some passing. We settled on who would defend and who would be our strikers. Minor details that should have been figured out before we played.

The following Wednesday we played a team called the ‘Sir Percy’s’. Walter kicked off, passed it to Chris, who from fifteen metres out lifted his back leg and foot, and booted the ball towards the goals. Their goalie was still napping, and the ball shot into the back of the net. There were whoops of joy from all of us.

Our first goal.

We were in front for a minute. Then one of their players wearing an Arsenal jumper levelled, were in front two minutes later and went further ahead as the game wore on. I made some good saves and enjoyed being the goalkeeper. It was my one condition of organising the team, paying the registration costs for my mates, sorting the uniforms out and buying shin pads for everyone. If I the one who stumped up the cash, I was picking where I was going to play. I tried to anticipate where the ball was heading when they were coming towards me and watched the footwork of the approaching players to see what part of the net they were aiming for. By now I had gloves and knee pads to help me be more mobile, and my wide girth helped me in some close-up scrapes, but it still wasn’t enough.

‘That was a better effort, boys,’ I said to them all when we were outside, having our after-game cigarettes.

‘We lost 11–1,’ Ronny said. ‘How is that better?’

‘I see us getting fitter, I see improvement. Don’t you?’

‘No.’’

But it became apparent to all of us when we were thrashed 20–0 by Division 5 ladder leaders, ‘Notts Florist’, the following week, that no amount of training at the park would help us. We were old, we had no soccer skills and we were heartbreakingly slow, so we decided, as we were smoking our cigarettes by the bus shelter after the match, that we’d play one more game than forfeit the rest of the season. I couldn’t argue with them and felt guilty about putting them in a situation where they were constantly sore and battered. They’d turned up for four matches. They’d had a go.

I was on one of my lunch-time walks the next day. The sun was out, the weather was warm for June, and it was nice to feel the sun on my face after being cooped up in the office all morning. I strolled up Waratah Street admiring the murals that had been drawn on the brickwork of the back buildings of the shops that faced Katoomba Street. I turned left at the Yellow Deli restaurant, wondering if I had enough time in my break to make it down to the lookouts at Jamison Valley and back again, when across the road, next to the police station, I saw the youth hostel. A couple of young, tanned backpackers walked out the entrance and made their way into town. An idea formed. Is it worth it? I wondered. For one last game? I shrugged my shoulders, walked across the road and through the doors of the hostel. What have I got to lose?

On the evening of our next match, I waited until Ronny, the last of the Adoraballs, arrived. On the noticeboard next to the shower block were the ladders of the various divisions. We were winless and last in Division 5. One goal for, thirty-three against but I was optimistic about tonight despite our last place on the ladder.

I’d put up a notice at the youth hostel during my lunch time walk of a few days back, looking for anyone that was interested in playing soccer. Katoomba always has been a tourist town; the temperate climate and the clifftop views have attracted visitors for a hundred years. Tourists came from all over Australia, as well as from all over world, and in most of those countries the overseas tourists hailed from, soccer was their national sport.

After Ronny had signed on at the desk, I sprang my surprise.

‘Fellas, meet our new recruits, Tomas, Patrick and Ferdinand.’ I motioned the three, who were clustered together by the sign on the desk, to make their way over.

Ferdinand had rung me on behalf of the trio. They’d hooked up when they were in Melbourne and the three of them were backpacking together around the country. Tomas was from Dusseldorf, Patrick from York and Ferdinand from Glasgow. They were staying in the mountains for a few months, working as labourers while they saved up enough cash to head up to Queensland. They were in their twenties, lean and wiry, their limbs fresh, had played soccer since they were kids and looked keen to play.

I introduced them to the team, filled out their registration papers, paid the match fees to the secretary and we headed down to court 2.

We were playing the Sir Percy’s, the team against which we had led briefly before getting swamped and losing 11-0. It was the early game, the first game for the night, so the other players had brought their kids with them and the court was flooded with children in their school uniforms playing and kicking balls around the court.

I was in the goals at one end of the court, feeding the ball to my teammates who were in an arc in front of me for the warmups. For the first time, we had more than five players, which meant that we would have three reserves. Tomas, Ferdinand and Patrick donned the ‘Adoraballs’ uniform, they stretched and did warm up routines, passed the ball with precision and speed, and their casual shots for goal thumped into my stomach.

The ref blew a minutes-warning call, the kids were shooed off the court and everyone went to their positions. Chris, Donny and Carl were the first reserves, the European trio were up front while Walter was helping me out in defence. The whistle blew and the game began. Ferdinand passed it to Tomas, who moved forward and kicked the ball to himself as he weaved the ball between the legs of his opponents. He saw that Patrick was on his own in the middle of the court; Tomas passed the ball, and Patrick, from a few metres out, drilled the ball into the back of the net.

Like the first time we played against the sir Percy’s, we scored in the first minute. This time, though, they didn’t level the scores and they didn’t come close to scoring at all. Such were the sublime skills of our new players; they bamboozled the other team with their prowess and scored at will. They ran like rabbits, were deadly shots on goal and their footwork was magical to watch.

Walter and I were reduced to spectators, having no defending to do, and at half time we led 7–0. The Sir Percy’s players looked ragged and flustered while they were slumped on the bench at the side of the court. I could hear the chorus of bickering from them while they wiped sweat from their foreheads. Clearly, they’d expected another easy win. Walter and I had a break for the second half as Chris and Donny took our positions. The ref set the clock, blew his whistle and the second half commenced.

We won 17–0. I wasn’t required for the second half, neither was Walter, and Carl wasn’t required at all. Even though we were going to win easily, I didn’t think it was much of a match. My new teammates and their skills belonged in a much higher division, and I suspected it was the cause of the opposition’s frustrations at the half-time break.

The buzzer rang and the match ended; we congregated in the middle of the court and shook hands with our opponents. We should have been jumping for joy at our first win, instead it was a subdued affair.

After we packed up, I thanked the three recruits for their contribution, they handed me back my uniforms and followed us out to the front door. They’d been running around for 36 minutes and hadn’t even broken into a sweat. They bade us farewell as we stopped for our cigarettes by the bus stop, and we watched them as they walked towards Patrick’s car.

‘What the fuck were you thinking, Norman?’ Carl demanded after they’d driven off.

‘Yeah, you idiot,’ Ronny added.

‘Wait. What are you talking about?’ I asked, dumbfounded. ‘We had a win. What’s the problem?’

‘We’ve been thinking,’ Walter explained. ‘It’s not as bad as we’ve made it out to be. We actually enjoy it, even though we get thrashed every week. It’s the hanging out together that’s the fun bit, and I’d rather lose then win like that, so we decided while we were packing up, that we might keep at it.’

‘I played rugby league for Bega when I was a teenager,’ Chris remarked. ‘Never won a game for four years. Had a great time.’

‘Did you tell the secretary we were forfeiting the rest of the season?’ Ronny asked.

I shook my head. ‘I was just planning on none of us turning up.’

‘Okay, we’ll keep going. Just the five of us. We probably won’t win another game, but who cares? You alright with that, Norman? This was your idea after all.’

‘You’re okay with the thrashings?’ I asked them.

‘We’re okay with the thrashings,’ Walter replied.

‘You’re okay with the aching bones, the sore muscles, the near-death experience we go through each week?’

‘We’re okay with all of that?’  Chris replied. The others nodded in agreement.

I watched them flick their cigarettes into the bush by the bus stop, pick up their bags and walk to their cars.

I’d sprung a surprise with the three recruits before the match, but their surprise afterwards, outside in the cold by the bus shelter as we smoked our cigarettes, when they told me they wanted to keep going, was the better one.

I picked up my bag and headed for my car.

 

 

To return to the www.footyalmanac.com.au  home page click HERE

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help keep things ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE