Fitba'

'When I was a lad.....' as the saying goes - we had footballs like this.

Seeing this old lace-up football as a display item in a shop today brought back childhood memories. My dad brought me a similar football when I was about 9 or 10. I played football in the back yard with it for many years. All the leather got scuffed off of course, and it often got saturated with water so that it was really hard to kick it. None of the fancy waterproof lightweight bend, dip, swerve, kick for miles and still expect to score stuff with that old football. I'd like to see Mr Ronaldo or some other high paid superstar try do their tricky stuff with that old type of football! When you hit one of these old footballs boy did it stay hit. And tackling was great. If you timed the tackle well and blocked the ball just as the other person was trying to kick it he would go flying through the air and land in the Scottish mud. Great fun. I wish I'd kept that old football.

ps - picture is not as sharp as I'd like. We were running a bit late and so I rushed the shot. Bit like my childhood football skills! But when newer lightweight balls came into fashion, I sure could 'melt' the ball with very little backlift - a bit like Franz Beckenbauer (in my dreams!).

Hope you had a good weekend blippers.