Sporting come-backs never end badly, right?
I was kicking the footy with my eldest son recently and I mentioned that I’ve been thinking about pulling on the boots to play in the over thirty-fives comp here on the Sunshine Coast. And when I say “thinking”, it is the type of thinking that has been fairly absent of serious thought, until now perhaps.
I played Australian Football from the age of fifteen to around thirty, playing at a fairly competitive level. However, I’m now forty (rounding down, naturally, I’ll be forty-one when the actual day ticks around, and not a day before!) and haven’t played footy for over ten years. Oh, and I also had an ACL reconstruction at the end of 2020; not surprisingly an old football injury that I did in my mid-twenties and never got diagnosed until a couple of years ago.
My eldest was enthusiastic about it. When I said I might not need to play over thirty-fives and could potentially play in the thirds he asked what that was. I explained it was the third division; after first grade and reserve grade. He exclaimed, with a level of indignation, that surely I should play in the firsts, or at the least in reserve grade! Bless him! Not that a sixteen year-old being indignant is anything unusual, but that he was indignant on my behalf was quite refreshing! At sixteen, I’d thought the days of him looking up to me were long gone (or at least thrown into the old toy box with all the old toys from days past. To be found some day in the future, dusted off with a level of nostalgia. Or possibly to be discarded in the trash, or sold for fifty cents at a garage sale). Apparently though, he still rates me enough to think me capable of matching it with the best footballers on the Sunshine Coast! it was a nice feeling, even if not terribly accurate.
So now I am left wondering; should I pull on the boots for a triumphant come-back, or not? Ego driven images of kicking the winning goal (yes, yes, I know I played mostly in the backline during my senior football career, but this is a fantasy, not based on actual likelihoods), hoisting the premiership cup and receiving best on ground medals flash briefly through my mind. I mean that’s how it went for Michael Jordan when he made his come back, right? Or when Tony Lockett made his come back to the Swans for a triumphant return after two years of retirement?
Okay, so maybe premierships and Best & Fairests are not super likely (curse you reality!), but that’s not really the best part of playing football anyway. For me it was always the challenge of the match, the comradery of the team, the feeling of being fit and healthy, the feeling of being a valuable part of something a little bit bigger than yourself. All these things are achievable regardless of what level I were to play at and how many award are won, whether at the team level or individually.
But they war in my head with the realities and practicalities of it all as well. Like the aches and pains that go hand in hand with contact sport (or sport in general), and a body maybe a little less capable of bouncing back from them quite so quickly. There’s the difficult pre-seasons, getting into shape and rediscovering muscles that have not been used in some time. There’s the busted knuckles (from the ball, not from punching on!!), the rolled ankles, the corked thigh that leave me hobbling for the next week or so. There’s the stitches and bruises that left my work colleagues wondering if I had secretly joined a fight club and was just obeying the first rule of fight club and not talking about fight club. Then there’s the more serious injuries, like the fractured collarbone, the broken nose (again, not from punching on!), or the ACL. Oh, and the sunburn. I mean, I used to get sunburned sometimes playing in the Sydney winter. So playing on the Sunshine coast, and with the decided lack of hair on my head, this has to be a big consideration for me and my pasty white complexion!
Aside from the injury concerns, there are logistics around physically fitting it in. Around parenting. around spending time with that special person. Around work. Around the boy’s football and other sporting & social commitments. Around family events, catching up with friends, reading, other hobbies and interests, of which I have accumulated a few over the years. Oh, and writing of course. My blog posts have not been the most regular recently, and I have a couple of books on the go at the moment which are moving more slowly than I would like. And it would be good to get some sleep sometime in there as well; I can only lean on coffee so much!
Time is the great equalizer as they say, and we all contend with these sorts of challenges. It is hard to choose what we prioritize and what we set to the side, temporarily or permanently. My older boys are in their teens now and are starting to feel this; with burgeoning social lives, sporting commitments, increasing workload at school, starting first jobs, learning to drive, finding young love, losing young love, chores at home, family commitments, just relaxing at home, etc. Missing out never feels great. But not making a choice and trying to do it all can end up being worse; adding stress and putting a lot of pressure on yourself and potentially those around you.
For me, this is the main consideration in this choice. Playing footy has some great pros, but I’ll need to think realistically about the impacts, good and bad, for me and for those around me, were I to choose to play again. I think I will let this one simmer a little; the 2022 season is already underway, so I figure I’ve got until the end of the year to decide!