The walking football blog

Happy new walking football!   It’s January. It’s dark. It’s cold.   …And yet, it’s a time of hope, of new beginnings.   Goodbye old me, hello new me.   Like your style, is that walking football you’re playing?   Yes… anyway, you get the idea.   It’s the first 2024 session of WF (that’s walking football, as opposed to WTF, which actually might be more appropriate if you saw me playing). And this evening is important.   It kicks all of us off on the right foot for 2024. And there are some new players tonight, who are made to feel very welcome – us old hands even go easy on them in their first session, but in an encouraging, rather than patronising, way.   These sessions and the associated WhatsApp groups really do bring people together. And for the men and women who take part, they are a vital element of getting through January – and every other month come to think of it. We hadn’t played over Christm...

The highs and lows of walking football "D-D-Disappointing," I say as I stand shivering on a cold and windy December evening. "Someone's cocked up," says a fellow would-be footballer. I say "would-be" because tonight, despite the fact we have all arrived at the pre-ordained sporting facility in good time dressed in our best footballing clobber, there will be no football. No flashes of brilliance, no oohs and aahs at near-misses, no "well played" or "good shot". It's a subdued mood. There are a few attempts at humour, but we know the fickle finger of fate is pointing us towards going back to the car park. We realise the writing is on the wall when the caretaker of the nearby school arrives to tell us he can't open up the facilities which actually belong to said school becuase he "can't make that decision". Our two young organisers are at breaking point, their calls to people who might be able to help unanswered. ...

  The agony and the ecstasy I now have trainers without holes! I have borrowed a pair from my grown-up live-at-home son, who by some miracle is the same size.   On the downside, my sciatica is playing up big time.   Will these two factors cancel each other out? Maybe?   I’m late for my latest session of walking football – everyone has decided at the same time that they love nothing more than being on the ring road for an hour  – so I have missed the warm-up and I’m straight into it, sciatica and all.   At first, I move quite gingerly, the pain moving up and down my left leg in waves, but soon I’m in the thick of the action and miraculously pain-free.   I make a goal, I score a goal (the ecstasy!), I stop a goal.   My tactic is to spend a short spell defending, then move up front for a longer period in search of goal glory. Then it’s back shoring up the defence again for a few minutes.   That way, it looks to ...

The walking football blog By Tim Walker Open goal! Week one You’d imagine a sport with ‘walking’ in the title and played by people primarily over 50 (I'm 59) to be sedate, easy-paced, slow even. The reality of my first session on the hallowed Astroturf of a large secondary school was very different. This was an intensive 60-minute workout which would have stretched even 30-year-old me. I am, however, quite competitive where sport is concerned. I could have largely stood in one place, waiting for the ball to come to me. But after so long away from the game I so loved to play as a youngster, I am hungry for action, I want to be the hat-trick hero, a grey-haired Roy of the Rovers. On arrival, I had looked around the pitch at my assorted teammates/opponents – 10 men and 3 women. Many are like me – mid-late 50s – and probably, like me, coming along thinking it will be a walk in the park. Some don’t look too mobile, in fact one guy appears to have knees which barely function. But...