TABLE FOOTBALL BATTLE

"Alright?" asks Adam as I fish a Coke out of the beer fridge.

"Not bad," I reply.

"Wanna play?" He nods toward the table-football table. He's young, tall and quiet, maybe 21 years old. He carries that same remarkable combination of insecurity and confidence that I remember - a sort of unspoken maturity and strength that's hidden just beneath his youthfulness.

"Sure," I reply. "Maybe you can give me some tips?"

Adam laughs and puts a beer down. My Coke is unopened, heavy and cold. I take hold of the handles of my team. My hands are sweating.

"I normally lose," he says, diffidently.

"So do I," I reply.

The ball slams into the back of my goal before I've blinked. I slot it back in, spinning it with my thumb. It bounces around for a while. Then slam, rattle, and goal. 2-0.

All my concentration goes into the next few seconds. I save a few attempts and the ball flicks between my players, I spin them for all their worth, but fail to connect them with the ball.

My efforts are feeble. The ball gently rolls towards his defence line. He pounds it. It bounces uncontrollably from the sides, pinging off the players and the walls at lightning-speed. I can hardly see the ball, zipping past my men. Are they men? That's a bit sexist, I think. But there's no time for political correctness. With a thud, it spins into my goal for 3.

I am a limping gazelle on the plain now. Young Andy is a lion, steely-eyed, bloodthirsty, and determined. Again he strikes. 4-0. 5-0. Then I accidentally back-heel it. He laughs. 6. It will be a miracle if I even get a shot on target.

Flick, twist, slam, goal. 7. I sigh. We're maybe 60 seconds in.

"What happened to the tips?" I protest, trying to laugh it off. But ever the Felix Leo, Andy tells me to concentrate. I make a face.

I get the ball. It turns between my players and bounces close to his goal-keeper. He slides the keeper across and bounces it into midfield. I block, he shoots, I save and fire it back. He pounds it back downfield where I miss it completely as it passes beneath a defender who mysteriously has his feet in the air. I twist my left hand and the goal-keeper punts it. It hits his attacker and spins straight back into the goal. 8-0.

I try a different spin when putting the ball back in this time. The ball curves towards his goal and he smashes it with a defender. The familiar rattle of the ball in the goal strikes me as suddenly very wearing. Andy has scored 9 goals in the space of just a few minutes. My hands suddenly feel like hooves trying to evolve into opposable thumbs.

"No advice then?" I ask as I slot the ball back onto the field. Winning has not been an option for some time, but if I could just score, I know I would feel like doing a victory lap. But the lion does not concern himself with the opinions of gazelles. He deftly twists and turns the ball across the table, it bounces into the air, lands between two of his strikers and while I'm still calculating which way to move my keeper, the ball fires cleanly into my goal for the tenth and final time.

I over-dramatize my disappointment by shaking my fists at the ceiling and grunting like a caveman.

Andy smiles at me.

"I normally just hit it and hope," he says, "Works for me."

"What did you think I was doing?" I laugh back, apparently outraged, as I swish open my Coke.

I've always thought football was a ridiculous game.