"The what, sorry?"
"Doubles - table football competition. We need an extra player to go in the random pot."
Oh the random pot! I remember the random pot. It meant being picked last for football in the playground. It meant being not very good and being there simply to make up the numbers.
"We've got three," said Ant, counting on his fingers. "A fourth would make life a hell of a lot easier."
I haven't played table football since Steve left. In those little afternoon games when we both kept backheeling the ball into our own goals, I realised that we wordy tech authors would probably never be a match for The Finance Guys. They are like Olympians of the sport, twisting and flicking the ball around with skills the rest of us can only dream of.
"Yes, alright," I said, "If it helps you out."
Thirty years ago, my unhappy playground team mates would have said something like, "Look, if you get the ball, just boot it upfield or pass it to Shinyboots*" And I, like a small child in clogs would probably have toe-punted the ball straight over the wall and into the caretaker's garden with my first effortless touch. The unnaturally brilliant Shinyboots would scowl with thunder at me.
That'd be me back in the random pot then.
So, with fifteen teams in the hat, me with someone picked at random and the tension rising, I went along to the live draw at lunchtime.
First out of the hat, me and David from HR... against The Finance Guys.
Brilliant.
*Not anybody's real name. I'd like to think that Shinyboots went on to have trials with some famous club but he probably got fat through smoking behind the bike racks.
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