"Friendship Day" futsal tournament including 2 staff teams playing. In the staff face-off the winning team automatically qualifies for a semi-final match against a student team. Us old men, Vince, Anthony, me, Gerald and 2 surprise guest players, Hd Arts and Richard joined us against a younger, fitter Arts/Math/PE team led by the experience of Hd PE, soccer i/c and our current DM. Hmm... well, maybe their team only was 50% younger than ours. Ha ha.

We played in the blazing hot mid afternoon sun in the netball court, our goalposts improvised from 2 netball net poles placed at each end of the court. The match only lasted a total of 15 minutes, but really that was all we could take of running around like mad in the heat.

Our 2 teams were interestingly matched. They ran faster for longer distances, we tended to be more adventurous and creative with our probing of their goal. We created more chances at goal with more spectacular strikes, they played a passing game with fewer attempts at our goal. Unfortunately for us, they managed to convert 1 good strike whereas we were lacking that element of luck that could perhaps have made a difference.

Our best chances came from a chested volley from me that went just wide of goal, and a full-blooded volley from Anthony that splintered the crossbar without breaking it. If we were on camera we would have seen multiple replays of our shots from different angles in slow motion. Our downfall was our fitness. On a swift counterattack, we were too winded to sprint back in time to defend our goal and Gerald was left alone for a moment with Chee Peng (I think it was), who scored.

We adjourned to Gardens to rue our chances and drown our sorrow in so many large mugs of sugar cane juice that we made the Auntie a very happy woman. Anthony, of course, ran his own replays of his chances repeatedly and vowed vengeance if we ever met up again. Perhaps if we ask Amy nicely she'll set up another match for us?

Training. Fitness. Once we can run again, our team'll be unstoppable. You'll see. Oh, wait... wasn't this supposed to be for 'Friendship Day?'