Weekly Story - Herman!

Ok, I have made the decision to write a humourous story or anecdote once a week or so, just to entertain you both. I'm a bit of a lazy bastard at the best of times! Please feel free to leave comments (about the story, not the 'lazy bastardness'!).

This week's entry is: -

Herman!


This one goes back to the 1980’s, when I used to play football.

DT and I used to play for the local US Base team, full of RAF guys who were stationed there and the odd US player. The US players were really good guys but they knew very little about football (or ‘Soccer’ as only they call it). The crack was excellent, and many nights were spent in the bar after training. But as time went on, the RAF started to pull out of the area, and the team gradually died.

So we started our own football team as none of us were good enough to play for an already established side, and managed to get ourselves into the local ‘Friendly League’ (i.e. It was full of pub teams, and the friendly tag was entirely fictitious, as my shins can still testify!). We played in this league for a couple of years with some notable victories (but more usually heavy defeats) along the way. Then one day Herman arrived….

It was lucky for him that we were contemplating dropping Itchy Knobbs from the team as he’d been playing rubbish, and Herman’s arrival seemed too good to be true…

He was older than us by quite some distance (35 years old), a naturalised Paraguayan serviceman stationed at the previously mentioned US Base, a marathon runner, tri-athlete and most importantly he was South American!

‘Christ, he’s from Paraguay! He’s bound to be better than old Itchy! They grow up playing football on the beaches with rolled up newspapers for a ball! Get him in the team right away!’ was the fateful call.

And so the deed was done, Itchy was banished to the Subs bench and to subsequently never play for us again.

The game kicks off and immediately we’re under pressure. A long ball comes through and ‘Keeper DT ably clutches it to his chest. Seeing Herman out the corner of his eye, DT thinks ‘Right, we’ll see how good Herman is’ and rolls it out to the debutante left back.

What happened next has gone down in local football folklore…

The ball crosses the Penalty box line, and Herman bends down and picks the ball up and gets ready to take a throw-in!

‘PEE-EEP’ went the Ref. Free-kick. Hand-ball on the edge of the box.

Beside me, DT is apoplectic.

‘Christ ‘min, ye cannae be doing that….whit are ye playin’ at? Bloody fool!’

The rest of the team (and the opposition!) were in stitches (except Itchy, whose ‘Face of Fury’ ™ is now an International Trademark!).

Herman played on until half-time, when some other unfortunate sap was put on, and I’m afraid Herman never played for the team again. In fact, I can’t remember anything else about him so he must have just disappeared off the face of the earth. Not surprisingly.

Herman did leave us with one classic quote though, and a fine legacy it is. When asked at half-time ‘Why on earth did you do that?’ he answered: -

"Jeez, sorry Guys, but I’ve never played ‘Outdoor’ Soccer before………….."

Turns out he’d only ever played 5-a-sides in a gymnasium, and didn’t know the full size pitch markings!

We never ever found out his full name and we've never heard of, or from him since. It seems that he could even be a figment of our fevered imaginations.

Let's face it though, I couldn't make this sort of stuff up, eh?