The killer for me is that the full pitch game I’m in now has 2 established keepers so I get to play out. Probably a good thing as I actually have to run about. I was always a keeper as I’m crap at football and tall. Wasn’t bad in my day. Long time ago though. T20 tomorrow night, woohoo 
The speed difference is the tough one for me. When did I get so damn slow?!? I played centre back for a lower end Men’s Competitive team in my club to cover for short numbers, and for most of my life I have been used to being able to match pace with everyone except the legitimate flyers. Playing with players half my age, the ‘flyers’ were just about everyone.
Welcome to the club. I started working with my current employer 2 years ago. Its been a slow and rude awakening to being severly limited in strength, pace and endurance on top of general low levels of fitness. I’ve got considerably better but still eons behind others here.
I have a good excuse but that really doesnt sit well with me at all. I hate it for what its done on top of getting older.
once you pass 40, senior mens isn’t fun playing against twenty-somethings.
I spent YEARS in my early 20’s trying to put on mass, I just couldn’t do it. now I’m near 50 and I’ve traded 10lb of fat for muscle since NYE. still want to get back down to 85-90kg (was at 95) but at this point I feel much better and that was really my goal. the wobble is firming but still there.
There’s certainly something “solid” about 50yo muscle and mass that the youngsters don’t have. I’m no great footballer but I can certainly bounce the younger ones off.
Nothing quite like playing with a 28-year old complaining about the ‘fast kids’…dude, you are half my age, you are one of the fast kids.
I was 42 when I blew up my Achilles trying to keep up with those “fast kids”. moved to over-40’s until Covid wrecked the league. 2/3 of the league’s teams moved from FVSL to VMSL (fraser valley vs Metro Vancouver) and with the shortage of teams remaining, they lowered the age to Over35.
Our entire team was late 40’s and early 50’s, we hung around a few years but at the end of the season we’re looking at a completely different league now.
Our league is still bouncing back, but in a lot better shape than that. We have OT50 and OT35, these days I am playing OT50. That game in Men’s Competitive was a one-off for a shorthanded side, no way my hamstrings would hold up. Could not even begin to play anywhere except centre back, and the amount of sprinting I was needing to do to cover even average speed players was alarming.
The problem with the OT50 is the reverse, it is the last stop on the line, so you get older guys still trying to play. Had an opponent playing on his 80th birthday last season. Normally I am a very physical player, but when he got the ball I would just close him down and jockey…I don’t want to be the dickhead who ends a seven decade career in the game…
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Until the day he nutmegs you
not sure the last time you’ve played footy with an 80yo…
He must have been a heck of a player 50 years ago - great first touch, even now. I am a carthorse by comparison.
[quote=“Semmy, post:1593, topic:359, full:true”]
not sure the last time you’ve played footy with an 80yo…
never say never.
What position does he play?
Also out of curiosity, who does the tactics etc for these sort of games?
He was playing in midfield, winger would sort of overstate it.
Tactically, just about every one is playing a 4-4-2. The average age is much closer to 50, so the tactics don’t look that different from younger, just slower. Which is funny, because Canadian soccer is generally heavily influenced by the traditional British style, lots of pressing to win the ball back. What makes the league fun is we have ethnic clubs that will play very different styles, more like their original homelands, so you get surprisingly interesting games…sort of a geriatric World Cup at its best.
The older players are generally treated with a good deal of deference though, so those games usually have a very different feel. Some games can be quite feisty (had one last summer finish 9 v 9), others are low key. I prefer the former at this stage, but either way the post-game beer is good.
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beers, pal. Beers… plural
Nations Cup is an annual tradition here and a very hotly contested tournament
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Many moons ago the company (huge contractor) worked for used to have company wide 5 a side tournament.
It was the most viscous, brutal, bad tempered series of games I’ve ever played. Completely nuts especially when you consider that you coukd have ended up working with them at some point. It was as if everyone had their psycho switch flipped.
check this out… EA Sports in Burnaby has their own league. pitch covers the parkade, is 3/4 size of a reg pitch they do 6-a-side.
First outside run for domevtime this morning. Yeah, it’s different to a treadmill and I honestly felt awkward.
Anyway 4.8km in under 28.5 minutes. So a sub 30 minute 5km looks within reach.
I’ve been a little more reserved with training and diet over tte last 3 months or so. I’ve been struggling with electrolyte levels and I suspect a combination of exercise and low calorie diet tipped things in the wrong direction. More work to resolve that but feeling pretty good at the moment.
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New job Im averaging 40 flights of stairs a day.
Lost 2 kg in the process
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Haven’t been well the last week.
Checked weight , lost 2 kg.
Will probably gain it back in a day after I recover.
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