A year and a half without footy has been, quite frankly, rubbish.

So when a chap at work, Luke, wandered over to my desk last week and asked me if I’d like to join his Monday night fives, I fairly chomped his arm off.

This band of Englishmen-abroad go by the name of Trumpton Town – not sure why, there wasn’t a fireman in sight – seem to suffer the same ‘are we going to actually turn up with five’ syndrome that Bob did.

We turned up with four, grabbed a ringer and kicked off with barely a touch of a ball.

And it showed.

We went a couple down before a thunderous left foot shot found it’s way miraculously into the roof of the net from a young whippersnapper named Williams. But the celebrations were short-lived and we saw more fly into our hockey net than theirs over the next half and a bit. And it ended up 3-5.

We’ll get better I’m sure and, if I get fit, I reckon I’ll be able to improve on my two-goals-a-game average and establish myself as resident goal machine for this lot.

I did however manage to pick up a yellow card*, so hopefully I can bring that down from one-a-game over the next few weeks.

It was great to be back playing, I have to say. Hands up if you reckon I’ll be suffering in the morning…

*For not going back far enough at a free-kick. Come on ref, give the new guy a break!