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In The Line Of Duty
Southey’s great header off the line reminded me of our oldest player 82 year old Mike Williams. He is obviously a great deal more frail than in his prime but still puts in good performances as a left back. He was born in the same year as Pele and in the last months of that greatest of player’s life when he was confined to a wheelchair I told Mike that when he was younger he probably never expected there’d come a time when he was a better player than Pele.
Mike, despite his frail stature, has headed three goal bound efforts from me off of the line as well as having thwarted others in this manner. I cannot imagine he tells his good lady wife he has done this when she asks how he got on, for I am sure she wouldn’t let him play if she knew.
The most notable occasion he headed one off the line was when my team were two one down late on having just got back into the game. Nigel cut inside from the left and smashed a hard shot past the keeper from the edge of the box. But there was the octogenarian Mike Williams to bravely head it off the line and to safety. It was a surprise the strength of the shot hadn’t knocked him over. The game finished 2-1. And the likes of Southey were correctly lauding Mike Williams at the game’s conclusion for securing them their win.
In the pub afterwards the talk was all about Mike Williams and that moment with Nigel. Mike wasn’t there, I imagined he needed to lie down for the next week. The general consensus was that we were surprised it hadn’t killed him. And most of us expressed the belief that we would not do such a reckless thing if we reached that grand old age.
‘But,’ Southey remarked in all seriousness, ‘he had to do it. It would’ve been two-all, otherwise!’
I responded somewhat sarcastically by saying that I was sure that would’ve provided ample consolation for his widow had we needed to break the news to her that Michael had died in the line of duty, or rather in the line of one of Nigel’s powerful shots.
Jonty Morgan Humourist 