Year two was a strange time for me. I was still finding my feet in school, not really knowing who I was, who my friends were and really, what I was even doing there. I managed to slip into a crowd of boys through a mutual love of football that became my loosely termed ‘friends’. Every lunchtime would be the same, watch slow tick-tocks count down to 1 o’clock, sprint out of the class, grab the ball and head straight for the concrete football pitch.

And that was my school year, mostly. The problem was; I’m shit at football. I was back then and unfortunately for my current five-a-side team, I still am.  The thought of a leather bound ball hurtling towards me makes me close my eyes, flinch, and throw up my knees like Tom’s owner when she saw Jerry.  Team choosing left me with my back pressed against the walls for more times than I can think to count and my role in team was ‘Alex, you hang back.’ I stuck at it; ‘hanging back’ became my forte. I was the king of ‘hanging back’ and accidently hoofing the ball over the neighbouring house’s fence when panic over defending crossed my brain. Joe Maskell, a prick of a kid whose parents clearly told him he was the greatest to ever live at everything, always burnt prints of his scorning eyes in the back of my head whenever this happened.

But there was one perfect day. After a routine dentist appointment, I came back to school for the last ten minutes of the lunch break and quickly joined in with the on-going game. This time, it was a class war, us, defending Mrs. Winch’s honour versus our fierce rivals from Mrs. Rayleigh’s clan. There was an obvious look of disappointment as a kid with teeth that could eat an apple through a letterbox, two left feet and a very much functioning flinch attribute came running towards the pitch.  We were losing, the ball always constantly ending up in our end before we belted it back upfield. Then, the magic happened. The ball fell to my feet. I ran with it, straight into the midfield area. ‘Fuck it’ I thought and swung my leg. The next few moments were beautiful. I opened my eyes to see the ball flying through mid-air with the most magnificent spin on it. In the last few seconds, it curled downwards towards the fence, bounced off and rebounded straight into the bottom left-hand corner. I believe my Dad called that shot ‘the Banana Kick’. Jubi-fucking-lation.

That was the only goal I scored all year. Quickly tiring of football, I learnt that hanging out with girls was way more fun.

This is possibly the root of how I fell in love with Morrissey and romanticism. I honestly wish sometimes that had never happened, that I could just be a ‘man’s man’ with little respect for women and an innate ability to hide all of my feelings. Sometimes I think, just once, I’d like to meet a girl, drink enough tequila to paralyse a sperm whale, take them back to my flat and come morning, never see them again.

-A.

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