"The Perils of an Aging Sportsman"

If you've spent most of your life playing sport of one kind or another, but now you've hit your late 30's, or heaven forbid, you've trespassed into the 40's or later, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about here...

The mind is willing...but the rest of you can't quite keep up like it used to... This point has been reinforced to me recently, as I've just again started playing football after a 3 year gap during my international transfer. Back in England I played 'footy' almost every week for 30 years, from the age of about 6 to 36. 11 a side, 8 a side, 5 a side, 3 a side, - it didn't matter, it was great fun with a good bunch of guys of similar age and capabilities.

But now, life has changed. In my early 30's, I knew after a couple of ankle and knee injuries that my 'full size pitch - 11 a side' days were over. From the professional trials at Bristol City when I was 12/13, through school, and post university with the Westbury Wanderers it was good while it lasted. But after one crunching tackle too many, followed by knee surgery, I knew enough was enough. But I played on - Wednesday nights with the same guys on a smaller pitch - 5 a side, 6 against 7, or how ever many of us turned up, it didn't matter. Good fun for an hour, followed by a beer...And as we got older together, you didn't really notice the pace slowing or the skills wavering.

But now here I am touching 40 (sshhh), having joined a team where the oldest guy (other than me and another aged mate of mine) is probably 21; you notice how much quicker it is, how much fitter they are and how it really is a young man's game. Still good fun, but maybe a bit too intense for a guy who spent the last 13 years involved in a league called "The Casuals - A League for Old Gits". Especially as they all seem to come from the "Ronaldo of 5 years ago" school of thought...put your head down and run as fast as you can with the ball and try and beat everybody on the pitch...twice...then shoot! 'Pass and move', 'find the space' does not seem to appear in the American 'soccer' vocabulary....we'll teach them...

But this blog topic, and the Title, came to mind by way of an hilarious email sent to me by my other aged (46) teammate, who pulled/tweaked his groin muscles on Wednesday night but refused to come off as he was enjoying himself too much...I gave him some advice that involved a hot bath and the application of some analgesic cream... The results are quite 'eyeopening' and he graciously gave me permission to publish this story...names have been withheld for obvious reasons of privacy!

"I took your advice last night and had (his wife) run me a bath for when I got home. I stopped off at CVS (for Brit readers - chemists) and got me some of that Icy Hot (Deep Heat) cream. So I get in the bath and sure enough I started to feel much better. Straight afterwards I thought I’d put some cream on. I’d forgotten how hot this sort of stuff is. So I’m putting it on the top of both my thighs while conscientiously trying to avoid getting any on any ‘sensitive areas’. The problem was that because it was both inner thighs, I was using alternate hands to put the cream on and consequently alternate hands to move my gonads out the way."

"Needless to say that while I’m doing the second leg I’m inadvertently rubbing the remnants of cream from the first application on my bollocks! Oh My God I thought I was going to die! The thing is there’s a delay and then the pain just builds and builds! Well I’m in agony, and (his wife) is cracking up. To make things worse I just run over to the sink and still using my hands, which are both still covered in cream, I start trying to wash the stuff of with cold water, all the time compounding the bloody problem by rubbing more cream in! After a minute or two I realize what’s going on and jump in the shower and use the shower sponge and cold water to get some relief! I can laugh about it now but trust me it was fricking agony! Needless to say I made sure I had underwear on this morning before even thinking about putting the cream on!"

And that truly is one of the greatest perils of an aging sportsman!