1001 Things to Do Before You Die..............

Don't you love friends? I'm 50 yet still think of myself as 30, and when this 'friend' phones me this week and says, 'Are you doing anything Wednesday night?' the mind immediately thought, 'Lads night out with alcohol'... no, I'm not busy.

FOOL!!!!!!!

So I find myself with a pair of goalkeeping gloves, stuck between two of those 5-a-side goalposts. They always put the oldies in goal or the overweight ones...

Now, 40 years ago I used to play in defense with Terry Butcher (Google the name if you are not English or Scottish), but 40 years on I have a stoma and an ileostomy bag, so you can imagine the trepidation I had diving to make the odd save during the first 25 minutes of nonstop frivolity.

5 minutes to go and our center forward managed to twist his ankle... there were only 5 of us, so a quick change and muggins was out of goal and up front. In the final minute, the ball arrived at my feet just in our own half, and suddenly I thought I was 18 again... 2 defenders were bypassed more by luck than judgment, and with the 16-year-old goalie thinking this old guy isn't going to beat me, I hammered the ball into the top left-hand corner of the net before he even moved his feet.

For a few minutes, I forgot I was different... the clock had been totally turned back...

I guess we all have had our problems with health; otherwise, we wouldn't be in this place, but life gives us just one innings. What we do and what we make of it is down to us. There is no point in dwelling on the problems we have... those will not change... they will not go away, but surely we all need to make the most of what we have. We all need to do everything we want to do... there are no limits other than those we foolishly put on ourselves.......

We are not different... we are just special.