A friendly competition
Warning: Not directly football related!
I admit to being more competitive than your average Joe the plumber. I like to compete and I always try to win. Most of the time, it’s a spoken, agreed competition, but on occasion you have a situation such as the one below, when the competition is never mentioned by either party and no winner is officially crowned.
I was at Hoppeloppeland with my kids the other week, a great play area with lots of climbing areas, bouncy castles and games. They have a small room there with a pool table, air hockey table, one of those pub basketball hoops and a football machine. The football machine is similar to the boxing machines they have at fairs, where the purpose is to punch as hard as you can and the machine measures how hard you do it. The football machine measures how hard you kick the ball.
I had been in this room when we first arrived, and while the kids played air hockey, I had a quick go and set the high score for the day with a mediocre kick. This was early in the day, so it was no great accomplishment, to say the least. We returned to the room about an hour later. Two nine or ten year olds were playing on the football machine, while a young dad, whose daughter was playing on the air hockey table, was standing by. I could see him eyeballing the machine.
After seeing the two kids getting scores of about 4-500 on this machine (my high score had been 664), I asked them how high they thought I could kick it. I never exchanged a look with the other dad, but the challenge was on. I stepped back and gave it one of those “I know I’m risking pulling a muscle, but I don’t care”-kicks. The kickmeter climbed steadily to just over 730. The kids were very impressed and my kids were proud that these big kids had gone “wow” to my limited football skills.
We left the room a few minutes later, but the toilets are just outside that room, so i was waiting there while the kids went. I glanced into the room and I saw the other dad setting up the machine and giving it his best.
The meter counted up: 400-500-600-650-680-690-”696″.
I smiled to myself. Result.
Tags: football machine
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31. October, 2008 at 23:46
This machine sounds more fun than football, at least it’s one ball per person. The real game has 22 guys and 1 ball which is very strange. We would see many more goals and fewer fights if each guy got his own ball. Kind of like a much better sport: GOLF!
3. November, 2008 at 15:20
I won a competition on one of those boxing ones in the summer – it was easy as for motivation I imagined I was hitting Aiden McGeady and I leathered it a beauty.
4. January, 2009 at 23:21
Hey, great blog! Keep up the great work. Hopefully you’ll be posting again soon.
I had an idea for your site that I think you will be keen to, so shoot me an email for more info. My email address is found in my blogger profile.
Thanks!
TSP
18. January, 2009 at 15:04
Thanks for the feedback. I haven’t watched much football recently, which has led to a drought in posting, but I’ll get back into it soon. I can’t see your blogger profile linked here, unfortunately, so email me at rik@pocalay-removethis-.com.