The Old Bags United Story - Part 1
Love of football rekindled
Since my daughter was in primary school, she has played football. First for the school (thank you Mr Sutcliffe, Wincheap Primary), then when she moved to secondary school for our local girls league team. It meant that while I had spent at least three years shivering on a windy touchline watching my son play, my ‘soccer mum’ days weren’t over. To be honest, I loved it. I really loved that she was getting to play a sport that I never had the chance to.
Jo’s daughter in action for Canterbury City
When I was in primary school (Bank Leaze Juniors, Lawrence Weston, Bristol – picture the Bash Street Kids but with more smoking), I would hang out with the boys at break time and join in the ridiculous melee that is playground football. Please don’t for one minute imagine some sort of Gregory’s Girl scenario – I was absolutely rubbish. When it came time to pick the teams (which always took half the break time), I wasn’t picked last but nearly last in front of Tyrone Weeks and a couple of extra weedy third years. Then one fateful day the headmaster decided that I wasn’t allowed to play anymore and banned me. The girls were supposed to help out in the kitchen at dinnertimes, not play football. I’m not sure why, but at the time I didn’t even question it.
Years later, after watching my baby girl go through the terrible highs and lows of being on a football team, I realised I still wanted to play. But in my then late 40s there wasn’t a chance any more – was there? Watching BBC South East one night I saw a feature on the ‘Crawley Old Girls’ – set up by Carol Bates. They were all 40+, running (slowly) around an astro pitch, actually playing football. That was a lightbulb moment, I realised that I could play football, if I wanted to. I just had to sort it out myself.
I enrolled onto a Kent FA coaching course (level one – more on this later) and in January 2017 I booked a five-a-side astro pitch, put a tentative post on Facebook, and Old Bags United was born.
The Old Bags celebrate a draw against the team that inspired them, Crawley Old Girls.
