Pigeon

There are some days when you just want a quick and easy blip. Today was one of those days and here is a pigeon on our garden fence.

On Saturday my blip related to me playing in a half-time demonstration of walking football during the Chester v Nuneaton match.That was a surreal experience and my late blossoming football career took an even stranger turn tonight.

I had been asked if I would like to play in a match at the Chester ground tonight but no mention was made of the opponents. Our team included Chester manager Steve Burr, a prolific goalscorer with Macclesfield Town in his playing days, as well as Jon McCarthy, the ex-Birmingham City and Northern Ireland winger and former Everton, Chester, Shrewsbury and Rochdale striker Alan Tarbuck. The rest of the team was a motley crew of youth team coaches and volunteers. Like me, some of them were old enough to know better.

After getting changed we sat in the dressing room waiting to find out our opponents and in walked former Liverpool and England legend Michael Owen along with Premiership referee Mike Dean. It seems that we were playing a team from Michael's stables made up of stable lads and jockeys. To cap it all Michael played for the opponents and Mike Dean was our referee.

I would like to say that I ran rings around Michael but I just remember vainly chasing after him and the closest I got was a photograph at the end of the game. We lost 4-3 and missed a penalty and unsurprisingly Michael was the difference between the teams. At 3-3 he stepped up the pace and cruised past our defence to score the winning goal.

Another memorable evening but I will feel it tomorrow