The Joys of Walking Football
I’d like to write something on the joys of walking football in the hope of encouraging people to take the game up. As well as being enjoyable, it is healthy activity, keeping the body moving as it ought. It’s also good for the soul. It offers a form of socialisation to counter the social isolation we’ve been living through in recent times. It’s good to meet other people and join with them to indulge a common passion. It’s worth saying, too, that football is far more exciting and far healthier than most other common endeavours in being a participatory good as opposed to a merely passive pleasure.
I saw on Twitter that my old home town of St Helens was bringing a team to my new home town of Llandudno. St Helens Walking Football team were coming to town! The notice encouraged us to come on down to Llandudno’s ground at the OPS Wind Arena at 3pm 10th August and play the beautiful game. It was an invitation that was impossible to refuse.
So I finally made my long-awaited return to the game of football. I’d been promising a return since selling my boots in my twenties, but had never quite got round to it – events, circumstances, things, studies, work, excuses. There are no excuses! If you think you don’t have time then you should make time! You are more than likely absorbed in some time-wasting activity that you could easily discard and never miss. I was never much of a footballer, but was always keen. My game was about running, chasing, denying space, and tackling. My biggest worry was that walking football either eliminates these things or severely curtails them. More positively, these constraints encourage you to actually play some football! With the slower pace, you have time to see your opponents, to pass and move (walk quickly), find space, and have the ball doing the work, which is the secret of all great footballers. By some strange alchemy, I discovered that I had footballing skills that I didn’t think I had. That comes with learning to take the time you have and not go at everything in one excited rush, which is my usual take.
I have to say, having started the day with some fear and trepidation owing to my somewhat meagre footballing exploits in the past, I came away feeling that I was on the brink of sporting greatness. OK, I have pronounced tendencies towards exaggeration, but the game encourages you to dream again. A week on, and I’m still of the view that that was one of the best games of football I’ve ever played.
Now if I can do it, I’m pretty sure you can! I started off by warning my new team-mates that I can’t see, have no spatial awareness, can’t kick, and don’t know what I’m doing. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right game?’ one guy joked, with everyone laughing, (nervously, seeing as they were stuck with me on their team). It soon became clear that I was actually quite good, enthusiastic, and slotting in very nicely indeed. I could see how the team was organising itself, basically the five outfield players spreading out, each taking a member of the opposing team, blocking their route to goal, using the ball to cut them out and get behind them. With games in progress, team-mates were seeking me out to sing my praises. I’d got the hang of it and was doing well!
There’s quite a lot to learn. It’s the same game but different. I loved to run, tackle, and dribble. My biggest assets on the football pitch were speed in both attack and recovery and ‘tenacity’ in the tackle. I did try to dribble in the Walking Football, only to find that as you beat a man you can’t sprint away. At the same time, you learn that your opponent can’t rush into a tackle, only walk like yourself. It took me a long while to realise this, leading me to dispose of the ball far too hastily in anticipation of a tackle. I also learned that you can only be tackled and tackle in turn from the front, not from the back or the sides. That means that if you do beat a man (or a woman, two of the teams I played each contained a woman), s/he cannot tackle you. You have time to look up and pick out a team-mate with a pass. The great thing about walking football is that it gives you the time to actually play some football, use the ball, control it, caress it, move it on. It really is the beautiful game when played this way.
St Helens Walking Football Team brought seventeen players to Llandudno, which is quite a hefty squad, enough for nearly three times at 6-a-side. Llandudno FC put on great hospitality, with the players being presented to no less than the Lady Mayoress of Llandudno, Clark Carol Marubbi. That made for quite the occasion.
With players coming from the host town of Llandudno, there were enough numbers to form four teams of six. I’m happy to say that I was in the Reds team, The Mighty Reds! I couldn’t resist cheering myself on: Allez les Rouges! Also in the team was 16 year old Llandudno Academy player Ceiran Williams. So it was mixed ages and, probably, mixed abilities. There was no way of knowing for sure until we actually started playing. Thus began a marathon two hours of football in temperatures touching 30 degrees.
The notice said 3pm-4pm, and we had spent a lot of time in preparation (and explanation). So I presumed that there would be just the two games, a semi-final and a final. I didn’t really pace myself, either. I ‘walked’ at high speed, making myself available, chasing opponents, cutting space down. Imagine my shock when I realised after the ‘final’ that there were more games! I’m glad to say, though, that I had plenty in reserve. I walk and keep fit and have been visiting the gym recently, so great credit to my trainer and the programme she devised for my stamina on the pitch. At the end of the third game it was noticed that I wasn’t puffing and blowing as others were. And I’d covered a lot of ground by this stage. It wasn’t an effort, though, it was sheer joy.
I played down the left flank, which was never my position in the past. I can’t remember ever playing on the left ever in the past. But I’m quick and have got stamina, so felt able to combine both full back and left wing in the one position. That makes for a lot of walking! I was like Dzemel Hadziabdic and Leighton James all rolled into one (for those old Swansea City fanatics who, like me, will understand the comparison. The great Leighton was also right footed like me).
The Reds hit the ground running and blew the Pinks away 5-0. The key, I would say, was organisation and experience. The team set itself up well, with players spaced out so that all strategic areas of the pitch were covered. The Reds controlled the field and possession, cut out all threats, and used the ball intelligently and productively. Playing on the left flank I could see clearly where each member of the team was playing and what their role in the team was. I set up the very first goal of the day with a beautiful dummy on the turn, playing the forward in with a back heel. I set up the second goal, too, with a flick that wrong footed the entire defence. I was off to a flier! I set another couple of goals up in the other games. In this first match I discovered that I could be a menace to opposition defences, despite never having been a forward in the past. It was quite the discovery. Being a menace to my team-mates was rather more typical of my footballing ‘career.’ So there you have it: turn up and see! You may have undiscovered latent footballing talents. Some untapped potential. Some glory to still be enjoyed. It’s possible. And there’s only the one way you can find out – turn up and play!
Reds beat Pinks 5-0 and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’m sure the Pinks enjoyed it too, in a different way. When you are playing football, who keeps score? The good thing about Walking Football is that it’s all about enjoying playing. When the rules on tackling were explained, I said it was basically about letting people play a bit of football rather than stopping them, with those around me agreeing. It’s about enjoying the game. You can have your own challenges, your own dreams and fantasies, in whatever little part of the pitch you play. Do what you can do and enjoy it. And if you bag an entire flank to yourself, like yours truly, then you can have fairly large and expansive dreams and fantasies. I don’t quite know what others were seeing, but I remember receiving the ball with my back to goal, only to let the ball run through my legs, putting players through for shots on goal or trying to let the ball run into the net. It nearly happened once, requiring just a bit more pace to bet the keeper, who only just managed to claw it on the line. I’m calling it my Pele moment. You, too, can have your own moments and memories. Everyone can take something enjoyable from every game.
I got back and covered, then turned defence into attack. Best of all were my beautiful faints and turns. (At least that’s what I thought they were in my head – Walking Football frees the imagination and allows you to indulge the odd flight of fancy). They were so good I really wish I’d seen them, myself. I actually started to applaud myself at one point. I’m not quite sure what they looked like to others, but they felt good to me!
My very best moment came when I turned the entire defence on the left and went on to power an angled drive low into the bottom far corner with my left foot. Classic finish. There’s a good chance I might be talking about that goal for a long time to come. This was precision engineering as an art form. I was really looking for a chance to finish with my trademark right footed curler. Another day.
Next up were the Yellows. These were a handful, with three or more very lively players causing mayhem right across the middle and front. I was effectively taking on two on my own on the left, and this two were savvy enough to play the odd one-two around me. That made for an awful lot of covering from yours truly. Yellows took an early two goal lead, but Reds got one back to make for a close and keenly fought game. It ended 2-1. I thought this was the final.
I was happy with my performance in both games. I had been heavily involved throughout, had played a bit of football, set up a few goals and scored a beauty. That’s not bad, I thought. I have since learned that this was a break, in which the players met the Mayor, with pictures being taken. I have no idea what I was doing at this point. Dreaming of my beautiful goal probably. I can’t wait to see these photos in the local press. It’ll be good for the local game.
I discovered that there was more football to come! Heck. The notice said 3pm-4pm. This now seemed open-ended, which struck me as a somewhat ambitious commitment on a blazing hot day. Then it struck me, if I felt a little nervous at further football, imagine how the others felt. And, sure enough, as the third game progressed, I was still going strong whilst others ‘paced’ themselves in the heat. I was enjoying myself so much I could have played all day. It was like all those years ago, when we’d play long after dark, to the sound of all the mothers in the neighbourhood calling out our names, insisting we return home under threat of some terrible punishment. We ignored. The joy of football easily outweighed any threatened pain. And in like manner we carried on playing under the sun. It was so enjoyable that no-one really noticed. We had water, took breaks, were sensible.
As the day wore on, and the energies of the odd player started to flag (or maybe they decidedly to be sensible and slow down in the sun), I was still going strong. I started to go through the middle a lot more as well as down the left flank, still switching from defence to attack. I found this more difficult, misreading others’ intentions and not quite linking with them as when on the left flank. Patterns had been established, and with them expectations. Football is a team game and you have to learn to link well with your team-mates. In my excitement, confidence high, I was back to my old attempts at playing ‘Total football,’ trying to play like Holland in the seventies. That’s how I had always wanted to play, and not just run, chase, and tackle, which is what I nearly always ended up doing. Walking Football is played at such a genial pace that it encourages you to explore the more beautiful dimensions of the game. As it was, the only times things went wrong were when my enjoyment encouraged a certain over-confidence. I was always very excitable when it came to football and always came a cropper when trying things well beyond my abilities. I blasted a couple of shots miles wide instead of doing the sensible thing and passing to players who were better positioned. See your team-mates and find them with the ball! Other than that, though, there was the great feeling of command and control that came in the odd moment, receiving the ball, stopping, standing your defender up, going, left or right, it’s your choice, fainting, dipping the shoulder, keep your opponents guessing, make their minds up for them, doing the opposite of what they expect, playing in your own time and space. Keep a cool head, read the game, make yourself available, know the flow and participate. They were probably just brief moments in the game, but such moments are available to everyone who plays Walking Football.
I had a spell in goal in the third game against the Blues. I thought it might calm me down. Not a bit of it! I was on a real high now. Even though I have poor eyesight (and worse coordination!) I prowled my area, following the ball in progress, working out where a shot was likely to come from and go. I made sure I had the angles all covered and stopped everything that came my way.
I thought this surely must be the final game. The teams had all played each other. By my reckoning Reds topped the league. Although we had lost by the odd goal to Yellow, Yellow had suffered a heavy 5-2 defeat to Blues, a team we had beaten handsomely. So that was the League to Reds! It turns out that Yellow had trounced Pink in the other game to set up a final between the best two teams in the tournament. I have to say I was rather crestfallen when I heard that we had to play the Yellows again. I thought them a very handy team indeed, with more than a few seriously useful players. I was more than happy with the way the games had panned out and felt I could go home in triumph. I feared a defeat on the horizon, which was no way to end such a good day. Not that it matters, of course. It’s only a game … The enjoyment all round had been immense and we had all enjoyed playing a bit of football. But there it is. Despite being a decidedly average footballer in my youth, I was always keenly competitive. I wanted to go home with a win! Don’t knock it! The competitive edge brings a little visceral thrill. There is great enjoyment in testing yourself, just to prove to yourself that you are still very much alive. Win, lose, or draw, you can enjoy yourself immensely playing walking football. But it’s nice to win all the same!
Red and Yellow were the best two teams in the tournament, so this made for a fitting final. Yellow had edged Red in the earlier encounter but this time the Mighty Reds romped home for a 5-0 win. Whilst I’d have loved to have been fully involved in the rampage, I was busy enjoying myself immensely at the other end, showing myself to be a spectacularly good goalkeeper. I started the final in goal, since it was my turn, and I was on fire! The game was decided during my spell in goal, with Reds scoring two early goals. Yellow threw everything they had back at Red. I saved every shot. One save stood out in particular, an athletic dive to my right, pushing the hard and low shot wide for a corner. I also tipped one piledriver from close range onto and over the bar. That was a close call, but it proved to be the last throw of the dice from Yellow. They had given their all to get back in the game, but the well-organised Reds had closed the space in front of goal and when they did get through I stopped everything. I didn’t concede a single goal. I was sad to get called back into the outfield. I finished my goalkeeping duties with a clean sheet and perfect record. The write-up by St Helens Walking Football said this: “Peter Critchley produced some great stops to deny Yellow.” As I was stopping them at one end, Reds were scoring more at the other. I think it was 4-0 by the time I got into the outfield. By now, the spirit of the Yellows had been broken. I pulled wide and used space to just eat up the ground, making Yellows chase me back, sapping their remaining energy. The game ended 5-0, described as a “major shock.” The Reds had reversed their one defeat, and it felt good. We won the tournament! I’ve always known I should have been a footballer.
In my head it was a tournament. That’s how it goes. Getting the body moving gets the imagination moving too! You can recover all your old dreams in Walking Football and even have a few of them come true. Win, lose, or draw, it was great to get on the football pitch and move around again. I’m better than I ever was! Not only are all the old skills still there, I’ve added a few more. Another way of putting is that whilst I was never a great footbaIler I was always keen, and the nice pace of walking football allowed me to expose a range of skills I never thought I had. It can do the same for you too! I’d encourage everyone tempted to give it a go to yield to that temptation. I’ll guarantee that you will find it a most enjoyable experience.
As we assembled under the main stand for an end of tournament photograph, there was common agreement that it had been a hugely enjoyable day. Those who, like me, were playing Walking Football for the first time, were pleased to learn that this is a proper game of football with skills and demands of its own and not a shorn-off potted version of the beautiful game. In many respects, not being able to run made things more difficult rather than easier. In one sense, having to walk rather than run is a great leveller, removing the advantages of pace and lung capacity, just as the restrictions on tackling removed the advantages of sheer power. That was the bulk of my game gone in an instant! But those restrictions increase the scope for playing some actual football, rather than relying on pace and power. Walking encourages strategic and tactical awareness, vision, and skill – in other words: football! And football is the very thing we love. If you once played football but haven’t played for a long time, if you enjoy watching football and have the urge to kick a ball round, if you’ve never played the game to any great level before but are interested to try it out, then Walking Football is for you. Most of all, though, the games were hugely enjoyable and played in a great spirit.
I started to go off playing football after I failed the trial for Sheffield City Polytechnic many years ago. In fact, I started to lose interest during that game. It wasn’t a good experience. I’m rather slow and unassertive when it comes to expressing my needs and requirements. I was playing with players who knew their positions, who had played for their school and who had recent experience playing with certain clubs. I had none of this and so couldn’t actually claim a precise position for myself in the team. As a result I ended up in the position no-one else wanted - centre half, which was never my position. I head the ball like a turtle, pulling my neck in as I jump. I was up against an enormous beanpole of a striker and no chance against the aerial bombardment that inevitably came my way. I had no idea about marking, or pretended not to know in order to avoid contesting the ball with Gargantua. I can remember being on the edge of the box marking time and space as he powered another header in. That game in Rotherham scarred me for life. I’ve held a grudge against Rotherham ever since. I’m never going back there. It is the cemetery of footballing dreams. I’m happy to say that Walking Football is a much more genial form of the game and rekindled my old footballing dreams. It was incredibly uplifting to hear people encourage and applaud others during the games. It was a great change from the abuse and insults that were usually sent in my direction! People are here to enjoy themselves and play a bit of football. It’s not judgemental. Everyone knows that they need others to be able to play the game.
I sold my football boots when I was in my twenties to a guy who was 39. He said I would come to regret that decision one day, telling me that you should play the game and run around for as long as you can because the day will come when you won’t be able to, and that day always comes much sooner than you could ever think. He was right. I started to focus on studies, passing exams, and getting grades. That was a colossal error on my part. Never, ever give up your sports! A healthy body and a healthy mind go hand-in-hand. Walking Football offers you the opportunity of a second chance at the game. It feels so good to know I can still play. It feels so good to just kick a football around again. I’ve missed it more than anything. It feels great to be playing football again. Ok, it’s only ‘a bit,’ but a bit is also an awful lot. In my head, I was always Johan Cruyff, regardless of what others would be saying on the pitch. On this day I came a lot closer to my ideal. And this time, those others were agreeing. Even though we were walking, and maybe precisely because we were walking. Walking yields a nice rhythm for actually playing the ball and playing the beautiful game.
‘I’m attracted to soccer’s capacity for beauty. When well played, the game is a dance with a ball.’
Eduardo Galeano
My all-time favourite footballer is Johan Cruyff. He was like poetry in motion when he played football. He was quick, but his quality is more than mere speed: it is grace, elegance, and élan. Cruyff could pause, take time, glide, go, and be gone. This was how I saw myself playing football; this was how I played the game in my head. In reality, I lost control and overran the ball, was immediately tackled, gave away the ball, fell over and was a complete liability to my team. This is what happens when you have to play at running pace. The amazing thing about Walking Football is that it offers scope for exploring all these heady dreams in slow motion. Instead of a headless, hopeless charge down the park, which was how my impersonations of Cruyff invariably ended up, walking graces you a little time and space to actually play the ball and play with the ball. Players can’t rush at you and tackle you from behind or from the sides. Walking Football offers you the opportunity to play. If you can dribble and get past your opponent, he effectively can’t come back at you. Look up, see your team-mates, pick one out. The game rewards those who can see their team-mates and pass to them. It’s early days for me, so I kept making the mistake of passing the ball in front of players for them to move on to. You have to pass to players. But you have time and space to make the right decisions on the ball. It’s a game with a different kind of motion.
I can remember shouting "Cruyff" every time I attempted something overly-ambitious on the football field in the past, only to trip over my feet or the ball, inviting derision. I never lost my football dreams as a result of harsh experience and even harsher criticisms. Those dreams are a part of your core being, they are what make you.
I didn’t score many goals at school. I don’t remember scoring any in the big games, the ones which decided who got picked for the school team and who didn’t. (And I would certainly have remembered had I scored). But the dreams never died. They may have been buried but continued to exist as some kind of latent potential awaiting a more congenial environment. I think Walking Football offers ample opportunities to light the fires under that latency. I didn’t have a zillionth of Johan Cruyff’s talent, but I shared his footballing ideals. He did on the football pitch what I always dreamed of doing. And he showed us that the ideal is real. I enjoyed my charges up the football park. I was a decent runner, and once came third in the school 400 metres. I could sprint, too. I enjoyed running in bursts. But athletics is not football. I found athletics boring and loved football. I found my athletic ability a hindrance rather than a help on the football pitch. I would try to force a move by sheer speed, only to find that I was using athletic ability in place of footballing ability. Walking Football exerts a calming influence, enables you to exercise some composure and control in thought and deed. It’s better to use the ball intelligently rather than rely on the pace and power of your legs. Pace and power were always my greatest assets on the football pitch, but I have found that there is a role for me to play in Walking Football. It’s called playing football!
I'll confess to being a hopeless dreamer with a hare-brained head full of football fantasies and ambitions which bear no relation to any known abilities on my part. But I continue to believe that within each and all of us is a potential for ‘something big’ and ‘something good’ that can come out of the shadows and into the sun, that little bit of magic that for once puts inner and outer in tune with each other, turns the world on its head, and puts it the right way around. When that happens, you may enjoy your one and only Cruyff moment. Or moments. The German theologian Dorothee Sölle was once asked: “How would you explain to a child what happiness is?” “I wouldn’t explain it,” she replied. “I’d toss him a ball and let him play.” Come and play some football!
"My great fear is that we are all suffering from amnesia. I wrote to recover the memory of the human rainbow, which is in danger of being mutilated," said Edueardo Galeano. Who is responsible for this forgetfulness? "It's not a person," Galeano explains. "It's a system of power that is always deciding in the name of humanity who deserves to be remembered and who deserves to be forgotten … We are much more than we are told. We are much more beautiful." I love those lines – we are all of us more beautiful than we are told, than maybe we tell ourselves. You can come and reveal some of that beauty when playing the beautiful game.
I was always pretty lousy on the football pitch. I know I was lousy because others were constantly telling me so. I got none of this playing Walking Football. I had been rather worried about returning to the football field. The odds were that I would continue to be lousy at the game, with confirmation bringing about the final disillusionment and destruction of my elusive dreams. Not so! First of all, everyone who plays does so for the sheer enjoyment of the game. And not only their own enjoyment but also the enjoyment of others. After the rules on tackling had been explained, I said basically let people play a bit of football rather than stop them, to agreement all round. In my first games playing Walking Football I showed myself to be a far better footballer than I had ever shown myself to be on a football field in the past. I was the footballer I had always known myself to be, but had never allowed the time and space to be. My speed combined with my over-excitement, had me playing in a rush. Walking Football removes the rush and has you playing the game. Rather than rushing at the opposition, I was knitting with team-mates, dream-weaving, working the ball, and showing my abilities! Which just goes to show: We are all of us much better than we are told. I had my Cruyff moment. You can too.
I have terrible memories of countless terrible performances on the football field. But I felt so good playing Walking Football. You get more time on the ball and more space to play in. I have always been a football romantic and had massive footballing dreams in my youth. Come to think of it, those dreams remain undimmed by the years (and by failure). And it all came true! Well, not quite. But when you make a beautiful pass, when you pull off some elaborate flick or sell a dummy, when you score a superb goal, it can seem in that moment that you have been granted everything you have ever wished for. Not all dreams come true. Only some. And they are more than enough.
'Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not invite us to have them.' (John Updike).
Walking Football offers an open invitation to one and all. I strongly urge people to get involved in the game wherever they live, meet new people, forge new bonds, and entrench and expand the sites of common joy.
A write-up of the great day from St Helens Walking Football