3. WHEN SATURDAY’S GONE By Jonaldo.

The Dressing Room Proposal

Ladies of a certain age, and some a good decade or two younger, are rather attracted to us senior footballers. We have an undeniable appeal to them. It’s possibly because a fair few men my age are either confined to their armchairs through various infirmities, gardening or are pushing up daisies rather than tending to them. Just like the younger ladies of previous generations zeroed in on George Best rather than Percy Thrower to fantasize about, so the slightly more mature females of today make a beeline for me and some of my footballing colleagues instead of my immediate neighbours on my retirement park who prefer wielding the rake to acting like one.

Thus I have had my opportunities. I wouldn’t say these mature women throw themselves at me, as half of them would have difficulty getting back up again, but I can often detect a longing in their breasts for me and my like, which can make it difficult training and focusing upon the upcoming big match.

Just such an occasion arose a few months back when I helped reunite a lady with her lost cat. I had fed him outside and once I had gained his trust I took him to the local vet where he was checked for a microchip and found to have been missing for ten months.

It transpired that his owner had advertised with a reward for his return months earlier and had virtually given up hope of being reunited. Through the vets she contacted me stifling tears and wanting to give me a reward. I said that getting her beloved feline back to his home was reward enough for me but she insisted on meeting me the following day and seeing where her cat had been for the last three months he had been missing.

She turned up just after my big Friday match where I had scored, with a neat shot on the turn and upon meeting her I could detect from the look in her *Eastern European eyes she was impressed that I played football. I naturally assumed my scoring antics weren’t over for the day. I showed her where her cat had been, including on one occasion, my roof. And had to take her into my dressing room, with my bed on one side and the shirts hanging above benches on the other three sides. As her cat had occasionally ventured in there. She looked in awe as she studied my shirts and the word ‘amazing’ slipped through her lips.

It was then that she mentioned again about the reward and took fifty pounds from her pocket. Seizing my opportunity, like a good striker, I mentioned half looking at the bed that she could perhaps reward me in a different way. At this her eyes lit up as she surveyed the scene further. It was like a very big penny had dropped.

‘Of course,’ she said, smiling, ‘of course, I see, yes.’

The outcome was she bought me a Dukla Prague football shirt.

*The rest of her was Eastern European too.