How important is Sunday League Football?

Couldn't find a pic from our games. Must be all copyrighted by Sky or something?

I ask the question because I recently quit my Sunday League team after some lengthy "discussions" regarding my commitment to the side due to my lack of willingness to continue playing and training throughout June, when the season was well and truly over and pre-season was a good 5 or 6 weeks away. Obviously I'm aggrieved by the questioning of my dedication to the team but the aim of this post isn't to vent. It's more to poke fun at the notion that I, a man of 31 with with a full time job in the city, bills to pay, family to see, should definitely prioritise the Waltham Mercury 4th division over all of that. At this point I'd like to flag,  for those of you that aren't as schooled in Sunday morning football in South Hertfordshire/North East London, there is a Premier division meaning that my team plays, or should I say played, we finished 3rd last year (SAY WE ARE GOING UP! SAY WE ARE GOING UP...!  *and repeat*), in the fifth tier of the South Hertfordshire/North East London footballing pyramid. Unfortunately Pythagoras himself couldn't work out what tier of the actual footballing pyramid the Waltham Mercury 4th division is (I'm aware that Pythagoras was all about angles and not pyramids). And 3rd place in that division is not to be sniffed at, we finished well above the likes of Albany Athletic & The Broxbourne Badgers and it took two very strong sides in the form of AFC Southgate and Broxbourne Athletic (who I'm assuming are bitter rivals of the Broxbourne Badgers, I bet the Hertfordshire police are on standby every time they face each other) to finish above us. I'm not even sure why I'm explaining this to you all, you'll have probably caught our games on Sky Sports, or at least the highlights on Sky Sports news on a Monday morning with the goals from the other top leagues in Europe. You'll all also know that we had a really bad run with injuries and absences last year which probably cost us in terms of winning the league, one of our strikers got arrested the night before a key game early in the season, our right back twisted his ankle running on the tarmac to the side of the pitch retrieving the ball after it had gone out of bounds from a stray cross and even I turned my ankle in the rabbit holes behind the goal in the warm-up before a crucial promotion six pointer. Things could have been soooooo different...

So I am now issuing a "come get me" plea to any Premiership teams out there. My wage demands are pretty low, I mean I was paying £15 a month plus a £50 signing on fee at my last club so I'd be willing to go as low as say £20 a week. I know! I know! How can anybody command such a wage just for kicking a ball? I'm afraid that's the nature of the beast that we football fans have created. Can I also point out to any potential Premier League suitors out there that I am not a troublemaker, honest! I'm not gonna do a Pierre van Hoijdonk and go on strike and I'm no Jermaine Pennant. All that I ask is that I'm only required to play/train during the football season and pre-season and that in training drills don't consist of blasting the ball at the goal from 5-10 yards out under no pressure with me being expected to save everything (seems to be a training drill not picked up by any professional teams for some reason??).

In all seriousness, I wish my former team the best of luck, they're a great bunch of guys and I reckon they'll be more that capable of holding their own in the 3rd division. I poke fun purely because that's what I do!

In other news, the Olympic football tournament is drawing to a close. I'm watching the Brazil v South Korea semi-final as we speak, Brazil are 1-0 up and there was a finger point to the sky celebration when they scored so I'm happy. GB are out! I missed the whole of the actual game but managed to see the penalty shootout. I'm starting to actually believe my flatmate's theory that left footers are less likely to score in a shootout. He correctly predicted Sturridge's miss on Saturday and Cole's in England's European World Cup (yep I'm still saying it) defeat to Italy. So is there something in his theory? Julian Dicks would probably disagree. Mexico are into the final, I bet on them to win the whole thing about 3 or 4 months ago, maybe one of my predictions (although it was off the back of a tip) will finally come true.

The final thing I want to say is, to all you smartphone users who are football fans you need to download New Star Soccer! This game is currently dominating my life (well my commuting life), I can't stop playing it. I have nothing funny to say about it other than, my girlfriend is definitely going to get sick of me playing it sometime soon. Oh and check out some of my favourite New Star Soccer headlines, my character is quite the headline maker. Here are some of the best ones I've had or seen on Twitter...

I'm off to send my CV to West Ham...