The Carr Bridge Fun Day will be graced by my questionable goalkeeping skills on Sunday 3 September.
The annual event, which is held by excellent local football team Ackworth Juniors, kicks-off at 12 noon and includes a prize raffle, chocolate tombola, food stalls as well as a number of exhibition football matches.
I’ll be signing books, eating chocolate and attempting to save as many penalties as possible, from anyone who wants to blast one at me.
I’m even going to buy a new set of gloves, especially for the day at Carr Bridge. The ones I had when I was a teenager, left home in 1992, and last I heard had opened a mildly successful pineapple tinning company in the Ivory Coast.
In the 80s, if you were tall you were automatically put in goal by lazy teachers, whether you were any good or not. I, like in most things, was bang average.
During one season I faced seven penalties, and failed to stop any of them. We had a particularly useless defence that year, only one spot-kick was given away by me (due to a rugby tackle!). After ten years of arguing with teachers that I wasn’t a keeper, I was finally allowed to become a very average defender, who ‘went up for corners’ …coz I was tall.
So in conclusion, it should be easy to put a penalty past me. Roll up, roll up.
You can read Ackworth Juniors’s full article about the Carr Bridge Fun Day here.
Oh and if anyone wants to discuss the troubles of being a tall child, I offer therapy sessions.