Since being in India I have been lazy. In the last 8 months I have only learnt a few words and phrases in Hindi. This is pathetic considering I face a constant struggle communicating with shopkeepers and locals every day. Parts of Delhi have a high proportion of competent English speakers, but Laxmi Nagar is certainly not one of them. So there is no doubt that a knowledge of the language would be particularly beneficial in my current situation. But what do I do instead? I chat to people on messenger; I answer stupid quizzes on Facebook; I download music and re-name my audio files; I watch old episodes of Lost. In fact I do anything which involves not acquiring a new skill.

Similarly, this apathetic attitude has been present in my lack of physical activity. There are no sports facilities near where I live. However, I know that I could easily jump in an auto-rickshaw and be at a decent gym or sports centre within 20 minutes.

So it was that after 6 months of sitting on my arse, entertaining myself in my bedroom, I took some action. I added myself to the Delhi Street Football group on a certain ‘social networking’ website. To my surprise, within a few weeks, someone had invited me to join their team and play in a 7-a-side tournament.

Joining an Internet-based group that involved talk of legging it around a field after a pig’s bladder had been a big step for me, so actually leaving my flat and doing it was a massive mental and physical leap. Somehow I managed to talk myself into the idea and found myself stood outside Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at 3.30 last Saturday afternoon. Amazingly, my contact was there before me with a couple of his friends and the ‘coach’.

It is rare that anyone native to India arrives before me to any kind of social meeting, so I immediately became optimistic that this would be a well run, efficiently organised team. The training session began and an hour later the 5 of us were still stood in a circle passing the ball to one another, with no sign of anyone else turning up. When I suggested that we might want to vary things a bit by using a goal they all seemed surprised, but went along with this strange idea. Throughout this training session ‘coach’ had been sat on a chair under an umbrella to shield himself from the sun, while sipping cold drinks and chatting to the people around him. He was too far away to see what we were doing and made no attempt to communicate with us at all.

A little while later a couple more people turned up, which gave us a team of 7. Suddenly someone realised that we wouldn’t be able to have a game of 7 a-side football with just one team. It was then that they decided to take the ‘initiative’ and ask some other guys hanging around if they would form a team to play against us. So, almost 2 hours after we were supposed to start playing, a game finally got underway.

A few minutes after kick off ‘coach’ decided to amble over and sit himself comfortably somewhere near the sidelines. But he still didn’t feel motivated to say a word to any of the players for the duration of, or after, the match. His laidback approach tended to mirror the organisation of the team on the pitch. As anyone who is mildly interested in football will know, if everyone on your team chases after the ball, as well as being extremely tiring, it is not tactically effective. All the players on my team loved to run forwards and attack, but as soon as the opposition won the ball from them it was amazing how quickly their energy drained away. Thus leaving muggings here to try and prevent 4 marauding attackers from penetrating our leaky defences.

Now and again, on their sweeping runs forward, the other team actually missed the target instead of scoring, and gave us a goal kick. But what use is having the ball if you are going to just kick it as hard as possible without any direction every time!? I screamed and I shouted, but still the goalkeeper booted it with all his might, as if he was trying to show off, instead of passing it to one of his own players; and still my team mates continued to gambol forward enthusiastically and limp back lackadaisically.

I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed this game of footy – my first for many months. The blokes on both teams were nice guys and I look forward to next time. After all, what is football if you can’t shout at your team mates, run around like a headless chicken and generally let off steam?

Posted by Andy on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 1:36 pm.