5-a-side

After ten months of 3 or 4 nights a week playing hurling and football, I was struggling to get motivated to head out to FCI training in Nossegem. Sometimes, it’s nice just to kick back and do something different. Not to different of course. For now it means 5-a-side and a bit of hockey but I’ll have to get out to soccer after Christmas to keep my place.

We (Belgium G.A.A. lads) play 5-a-side every Wednesday in the BSB at 9. Its good craic, not too intense and you work up a good sweat. I don’t know is it the fact it’s indoor or what, but it never gets too heated. I probably annoy fellas with the constant chat and goading but I’ve yet to find opposition willing to give it back, although David Collins does it in his quiet way but we could get more into it.

The last couple of times I’ve been home myself and Bolster arranged 5-a-side games up in Bishopstown. Selection criteria are pretty strict. I insist on keeping it old school (the Kinsale lads I’d have played with. I also like to use it to keep in touch with some of the ex-Belgie lads like Eoghan Kelly and Wolfey. Kelly has become a regular and is now a firm fixture on our list. By coincidence he works with Shane.

I picked the teams a couple of weeks ago and we ran riot. I genuinely didn’t weigh them in my favour but accusations flew so I had to stand down last weekend. I previously opposed the young fellas inclusion, probably purely because I’m not in on that banter. They got the call this time though and we dragged them up from U-21 training.

Myself and Bolster were separated which was always going to lead to trouble. Now, Bolster would be one of my best buddies but that just means the importance of getting one over each other is greater. We both harass each other for the hour and on this occasion they were keeping just ahead of us. We were chasing it late on and I was reaching my boiling point with him and all his sh1te so I went for the ball with a little more gusto than previously. Cue a mild wrestling match and angry words. No great effort was made by anyone to quell the brewing storm. Next ball I get Bolster charges in with a shoulder to the head. I was not happy. I could smell blood though, Bolster had lost the head. We came back and won. The journey home was as pleasurable a one as I’ve had.

Those games are always the most competitive. It’s like the bitterness from backs and forwards just carries through and fellas are up for it. It rarely boils over though and myself and Bolster had buried the hatchet a few minutes later. although why Mick Sull’s arm was covered in blood when he took his top off remains a mystery. I think in the pick-up Basketball world, they call it ‘Jungle Ball’.

Monday night I joined Cathal Fitz and as they were short I brought along Wolfey. Turned out Wolfey was in school with half of the lads there. It must have been below zero and no-one spoke for the first twenty minutes because we were so cold. It was all GAA heads but the game was more like the ones we have in the BSB, more tentative on account of the lack of depth of history to the relations. Maybe more enjoyable though as you are less likely to be kicked from behind, be scratched, have your jersey torn of ya or have your character and ability dissected viciously.

5-a-side is definitely a very sociable way to have a sporting evening but it’s still a poor substitute for proper training. Somes fellas make it their outlet too early and whilst I enjoy it, I’ll get back to serious business in January. There will be a few Christmas battles up in Bishopstown between now and then though.