Category: sport

Fan Man: A new breed of superhero

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The Blades were brilliant last night in the gale force wind at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane.
1-0 up halfway through the first half thanks to a wholly legitimate penalty, it was all going so well until Gary Madine had a rush of blood to the studs ten minutes later and scythed down one of their midfielders for a wholly legitimate straight red card.

What followed was a masterclass in prolonged, committed, uncompromising defending as wave upon wave of Brentford attack bore down upon the United goal. Sure, we rode our luck a couple of times, but these stats don’t tell any lies. It was an absolute siege, and we survived.

As you can see, the final score was 2-0, but there was a particularly squeaky bum patch just before we got that all-important second goal, where there seemed no way out for United. Every clearance came straight back, and every attack seemed certain to end with an equaliser.
So, picture the scene after 67 minutes, when the ball was cleared out for a Brentford throw-in and one fan on John Street decided that he was going to be a hero and waste a bit of time as the Brentford player asked him to pass the ball…

Oof. Still, at least it hasn’t made it onto computer screens all around the world, thanks to the power of social media and South Africa’s favourite blog.

That would be awful.

The highlights package isn’t out yet, and generally, they don’t put this sort of thing in anyway, but I’ll link to it when I see it. Just in case.
And also to remember one of the great Sheffield United performances of recent years.

COYRAWW!

CLS

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Another game of football beckons this evening; something that I am really looking forward to. Or rather, I was. I do need to somehow mend my lower limbs first though, as after a hefty gym session yesterday (and despite a gentle one this morning), I am very much suffering from Concrete Leg Syndrome.

You won’t find any reference to Concrete Leg Syndrome in any of the medical books, because it’s a name I just made up. There are no visible contusions, no specific damage to the muscles or joints of the legs, nor is there any one area or part which is particularly painful. It’s just that in CLS, it does genuinely feel like your legs are made of concrete. Heavy, immobile (no, not the Italian centre forward), generally slow and a bit grumpy.

I’m not in agony, not even pain. To be honest, even ‘mild discomfort’ is going a bit OTT as a description. I’m simply just aware that my legs appear to be made of concrete at the moment.

Because CLS isn’t actually a thing, there’s also no real treatment for it. Sure, stretching helps a bit, and generally a little light exercise assists with easing the weightiness of the thighs.  I’ve also tried popping a couple of anti-inflammatories, but it seems that time is the only healer. And given that tonight’s game kicks off in about 6 hours, it’s something I don’t have a lot of. Later, I may slather my lower half (no, not all of it) with Deep Heat in a last ditch attempt to wake my legs up from their petrified stupor.

There may be advantages too, of course. It must surely be difficult for an opponent to injure a concrete leg, and if I get time to swing one of my mighty trunks backwards and then forwards again into the ball (and I get it on target), there’s likely to be no stopping it – even the net may be in danger. But 5-a-side relies mainly on speed and dexterity: attributes I was already running a little short of given my advanced years. CLS will likely only make things worse. Just call me The Statue.

Watch this space tomorrow, as I report back on the game and my personal experience of 40 minutes of high tempo, leg-dragging football.

Positive news

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Last night’s Premier League matches were amazing:

(I’m only putting this here because I will wonder what was so good about them if I look back at this post in a few years. Now, I’ll remember.)

But that wasn’t the best football stuff that happened last night. I also played football yesterday evening, and despite running around like a mad thing for several (or more) minutes, I appear to have come out of the whole experience without any immediate serious damage. Even my knee, which has a habit of being a bit grumpy after such exertions, seems to be cool with the whole thing.

And we won.

It’s actually almost the ann-knee-versary (sorry, not sorry) of the op which went wrong last year, but regular readers may recall that obviously, I only had the op because my knee was causing me so many problems. All of that meant that I hadn’t played much competitive footy since Autumn (that’s Autumn down here for all you Northern hemisphereans) a couple of years ago.

It also means that our resident statistician [nerd emoji] was able to work out that this was my first win since 21st March 2017. Yikes. Although, given that I literally played one game last year, and very few the year after March in the year before, this stat isn’t actually as bad as it seems. Really.

Anyway: next week, I aim to make it my first win since this week.

Positive news from the Physio

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The last time I went to see the physiotherapist was probably sometime in May was this morning.

The time before that was probably sometime in May. That time, I was still using a crutch to get around, whereas this morning, I positively bounced into his treatment room, fitter, happier, more productive, many kilograms lighter, and actually feeling pretty good.

I left 45 minutes later, wondering where I could find my crutch again.

OK, it wasn’t actually that bad. But I got worked HARD.

The idea of seeing him today was to work on some more knee strengthening exercises. My leg is much, much stronger than just a few months ago, but all the work I have been doing on it has involved medial, rather than lateral movement. That’s great for road running and cycling, but not so good if you want your leg not to snap when you try a trail run or go and play footy. And so those are the exercises I need to do, but I needed to make sure that it was sensible to do them, and so professional guidance was required.

Now I have a month to work on these new exercises, before in the first week of January (all being well), we move on to “explosive jumping”.

And with that sort of reward dangling like a carrot in front of me, I’m 100% committed to kicking some knee ass. However that works.

Tonight though, a brandy and a couple of anti-inflammatories. Baby steps.