How I went from touchline dad to the comeback lad

Dad and junior coach ALAN DRAPER gives his account of how he kick-started his football career at the age of 50 by starting up a veterans side at AFC Henley.

LIKE many SAGA-qualifying footballers, when I was younger, I played grassroots football for as long as my legs, personal circumstances and motivation would allow. When the kids came along, in my case at
41 years old, I assumed that was it for me — it wasn’t, it was the catalyst for a “second coming”.

Admittedly, the catalyst didn’t kick in for eight years but started when my then eight-year-old daughter (Romy) scuppered my wife’s plans for Saturday girly shopping trips through Romy’s desire to follow her older cousin into football. Eight years of persistent brainwashing had reaped its rewards, and I was delighted. One down, two to go with her younger twin brothers a “work in progress”.

In a sort of reverse-Mickey Flanagan style I wasn’t just “in”, I was “in in”.

I volunteered as a coach, I ran the line each Saturday morning and I kicked every ball Romy did, I was re-living my footballing youth through her.

Fast forward two years and the wife of one of my old Sunday league teammates invited the whole team to her husband’s surprise 50th. We reminisced about our (very few) past glories and were somewhat taken aback when combative midfielder and supreme wind-up merchant Johno (John O’Neill) announced that he was still playing competitive football. How could this be?, we asked. You’re a grandad and, to put it politely, carrying several more pounds than you were back in the day.

The Oxfordshire Veterans (over 50s) football league had afforded Johno the opportunity to kick and berate near-geriatrics. He’d even named the team after our old Sunday league team, Oxford Exiles, I was “in in” again.

On the day of my first game, I experienced that combination of excitement and light nervousness that had been dormant for 15 years. I’d continued to play five-a-side football in a mixed age environment and my game had to adapt to playing against players 20 to 30 years my junior. It was fun but ultimately it was the methadone to the heroin that is “proper” football with its jeopardy, potential glory and end of season silverware.

The game kicked off and five minutes in I’m one-on-one against a right back who wasn’t young enough to be my adult son. I fought my initial instinct to pass it to a younger, quicker player with the sudden realisation that no such player was on the park — wow.

It still seemed to take an eternity to click that knocking the ball down the line and racing the fullback to it was a viable option. The penny eventually dropped, and an embarrassingly slow race commenced culminating in me reaching the ball before my grey-haired, perma-tanned opponent.

Five minutes later, I tried it again and seemingly fuelled by the embarrassment of his tortoise-on-tortoise defeat, he simply pushed me over. I didn’t care — the surprise and elation of being able to play as I did 30 years prior had left me desperate for more and possibly in need of the services of a mental health professional as my imagination ran riot.

Thoughts turned to a latter-life glory-laden period of my amateur football career.

I discovered that there is also an over 60s league and that England even has an over 75s team — if I carry on long enough, maybe an international call-up beckons? Could I become the first Sunday league player to win a cap?

I genuinely had this conversation with my sister, when, in horror, she realised I was taking her initial humouring of me seriously and quickly and sternly pointed out the stark reality.

“Alan!” she shouted in the manner of a Victorian schoolmistress. “Bang-average Sunday league players don’t get England call-ups.” She is, of course, completely right but, for the record, our mother was born in Belfast so, if anyone from the Northern Irish FA is reading this, I’m (half) fit and available for selection.

I was invited to play more games that season and, despite all these ending in argument-laden, heavy defeats, the fire continued to burn but it needed stoking by being part of a competitive team. I initially approached other teams based closer to my Henley home, when it occurred to me that a sports-mad town like Henley with more Olympians than many mid-sized countries (admittedly in rowing) must surely possess enough fit fiftysomethings in denial of the effects of father time to put together a half-decent team.

I approached other coaches at AFC Henley (my daughter’s team) to test the water and it soon became obvious that many were exactly like me, living their football lives vicariously through their children.

AFC Henley backed my proposal to create an over 50s veterans team leaving the club with the bizarre situation of players leaving at 18 but able to return 32 years later.

Our 11th-hour application to join the Oxfordshire veterans league was accepted and I now had two months to turn ill thought-out verbal commitments into a squad big enough to get us through our first season.

I needn’t have worried as word quickly spread through social media and within a month we had 50+, 50 plusses on the hastily created WhatsApp group.

This new and largely deluded group was quickly whittled down to a core of around
20 players following the first training session, where the transition from sofa to soccer pitch was too much for many as evidenced by one player snapping his Achilles tendon in the first session.

A couple of heavy pre-season defeats ensued but we quickly improved as we got to know one another on and off the pitch.

Fixtures are scheduled every two weeks and the games have a rolling subs format but otherwise, it is exactly like any other Sunday league, just with more grey hair and pot bellies. The injuries are also a bit different with sprains and strains replaced with the requirement for new knees and hips.

Some people asked if it was walking football. My answer is always the same — no, it just looks like it.

With the formation of the team being a bit rushed, we played in white T-shirts until our kit arrived in mid-January, sponsored by a local divorce solicitor. This was a genius marketing move, targeting the middle aged man having a mid-life crisis — divorce is often the result and arguably, footballing in your 50s is a symptom. Players were under strict instructions to wash their own kit lest they give their every-other-Sunday-afternoon footballing widows ideas.

At the time of writing, we are a third of the way into the season and mid-table but very much in the promotion picture, however, our target this year is third place. The top two get promoted but our plan is to have a good season but doggedly avoid promotion. The step up to Division 1 is akin to the gap between Championship and Premier League with most promoted teams re-joining the ranks of Division 2 the following season having endured a season of bi-weekly spankings.

The culture of the team has emerged — social but with a strong will to win — with promotion the target next year.

The body is weaker, slower and podgier but everything else remains the same. The desire, that nothing-else-matters-in-the-moment attitude, berating the ref, players turning up late, some with hangovers.

Pub attendance after every home game is largely influenced by the result as is my mood the following week in tandem with my late 20th century heyday, such as it was.

The changing room is a throwback to the Seventies — a dilapidated wooden shed, with dodgy electrics and showers with two settings — ice cold or scalding. The banter is much the same and would no doubt enrage the woke brigade.

Having re-captured those wonderful feelings of being part of a football team, I wondered how it would impact my thoughts and feelings when I watch my daughter play.

I’m definitely calmer through reclaiming my own football life. I’m also mindful that feedback is now a two-way street. The first time she watched me play, I had a stinker. As we got in the car she glanced over with angrily folded arms, a look of disdain and simply said “Daddy, we need to talk.”

I’m not expecting that call from the Northern Irish FA anytime soon.

l ANYONE who used to play competitive football and is interested in joining AFC Henley Veterans should contact Alan at alan.draper@common groundestates.co.uk