My favourite grandson is obsessed with football. Be it going to Spurs (poor kid; even though he loves it dearly), getting footballer cards for his albums, or, best of all, playing it, football has become 60% of his life. The remaining 40% is ‘snacks’. And I’m not only proud of his skills and his enthusiasm, I’m more proud of ‘the way he plays’. With what he’s learned from the professionals. Basically, he fucking cheats. All he can get away with.

We played a little ‘one on one’ in the garden yesterday evening. Having already played a little in his kitchen in the morning.

Joey points out my goal. It massive. The width of the patio. About 10 yards. And there’s his goal; slightly smaller. And, it must be said, rather more vaguely defined.

He scored first. No surprise, my goal is fucking massive. Then I scored. Or thought I did. But in fact, I’d ‘hit the post’.

‘No, my goal starts at… that bush, over to… another bush, there’. Oh. Ok.

He scored again. I scored again. But alas, VAR (or ‘Joey’, as its called in our house) disallowed the goal because the goal wasn’t in fact where I thought it was, and was much smaller than I was possibly led to believe. Ok. 2 nil then.

Then I scored. Incontrovertible. Right in the 14.3 inch space to the far right of the garden which his ‘goal’ had become. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, I’d committed a foul. So it was Joey’s penalty, from 4 foot in front of my goal. Which he scored. 3- nil. Fair’s fair.

What Joey considers a ‘foul’, there are many who would use the term ‘tackle’. But as his default is to fall on the ground clutching some part of his head/body/legs randomly, as he’s seen the ‘real pros’ do, its just easier to cry ‘foul’.

So its not just every facet of the ‘beautiful game’ little Joey loves, he’s truly embraced the entire culture of ‘professionalism’. Which, as we all know, is a fancy word for ‘cheating’. But only if you get away with it. ‘Shifting the goalposts’ is not just a metaphor, ya know.

Couldn’t be any prouder if he turned up in a Lamborghini with an arm full of tattoos.

Happy Friday.

A xxxx