A week or so ago, I had the chance to watch my son Callum play football with some of his friends. This is by no means the first time that I've ever watched my son play football with his friends, but for the vast majority of the time over the last 10 or more years, I've been on the coach's side of the pitch.
Which is different.
I have had the chance to watch him in different situations, but in this game, it was a massive cup game for a team that Callum plays for very rarely.
Callum's football has moved on a little bit, and he's playing in a development under-23 team (sounds a little more grand than it is, but he's trying his best to become a man's footballer of a reasonable standard).
In this game, though, he had the chance to drop back to under-eighteen football for the team that lots of his friends have played for since they were lads. It wasn't the team that Callum always played for, but this was with his best mates. The thing was, they were playing against another team of under eighteens from our club, filled with guys who they also knew from school and from round about in football times, but as I watched the game, it turned out that I had coached probably half the boys in one team and half the boys in the other team at some part of the team that I had coached.
I knew all of these guys to say hi to, to fist bump, to chat with. I've known them as they grew up from little boys playing five-a-side football to big boys applying for university.
It was an absolute joy, I can't tell you.
It was a crazy cup game.
The Jets (the team Callum was playing for) went 1-0 up, and the Sabres equalised right before halftime. The Jets went 2-1 up, and then the Sabres went 3-2 up close to the end of the game. It was probably going to be the last meaningful game the Jets would ever play if they went out of the cup because the Sabres had already won the league by a mile.
Jets equalised with a minute to go, and then in extra time, they won it with a minute to go, and all bedlam breaks loose for these 17 and 18-year-old lads.
It looks different to the eyes of a nearly fifty-four-year-old because you want to shake them, you want to grab them and shake them and say make the most of this because you will remember this as long as you live, and because this doesn't happen every day.
Joy like this after work, effort, it doesn't come around all the time, and you guys will be talking about this when you're old and fat, watching your own kids play football, (hopefully close)
But the greatest thing I could see was possibility, fit, healthy, bright, creative, enthusiastic, motivated young men running around a football pitch, and then afterwards we went to Five Guys with some of them and had amazing chats and laughs.
These guys love each other; they look out for each other.
They're fantastic.
I really hope we're able to harness the possibility that lay before us that day because it is extraordinary.
I think we're worse at harnessing possibilities now. I think we have to be better.
Blog Post Number - 4386