Goalasimo

Once upon a time,
in England, i used to play football
In short,
i was obismal.

Like a dog running after a laser pen,
i just ran around the place not really knowing
what the fuck i was doing.

I was so shit it got to the point
that i would just observe, rolling joints from a distance.

Lame?

Very.

I now play football again.

Being raised in England,
one makes the assumption i would be good.

That'd be a negative.

The standards in the prison are so bad,
people actually do seem to believe that i am a somewhat decent 'sarcur' player.

This ain't no normal game of football though..

-------------------

Prison Football:

A mix of standard 4-a-side, mixed martial arts and thai boxing.

There are NO fouls.

If you knock someone down, pick em up.

If you don't, be prepared to put em up cos you're gonna be rockin'.

Winner stays on,

ten minutes each match,

first goal wins.

-------------------

We have 'recreation' every other day of the week.

Most of the time it's just basketball,
but on Wednesdays and Sundays,
football.

Today is Wednesday.

I got woken up just before lunch,
to the sight of Burgers and Chips..

That was the 'official' explanation for the dry donkey tongue
sandwhiched between two green, damp, mould-ridden pieces
of liver flavoured bread.

 For a salad we were told to pick up some brown pieces of lettuce,
green tomatoes and packs of solid mayonaise,
that happen to taste like Cathedral City Cheese,
out of a dumpster filled with dead, sodomised rodents.
In protest,
i threw my hamburger on the floor and stamped on it,
bare foot, to the amusement of the large crowd amassed in my vicinity.

After watching me stomp out my meal with dirty bare feet,
someone actually asked me

"You gon' eat that?"

I get ready for Rec as quickly as possible,
the officers in charge of taking the inmates up have a tendancy
of sneaking into the unit, whispering that it's rec time and running
away before anyone can get ready in time.

After an ultra quick dump,
i brush my teeth and grab my cup to fill up with ice on the
way out the door.

It has a cool Spiderman sticker
on the handle, someone living in Serbia
sent it to me a while back, safe for that!
The line of inmates awaiting transport to the roof is epic proportions.

The sun is shining,
this is the closest thing we get to being outside
so it's no suprise that everyone is going up today..

In the elevator,
everyone is smiling, cracking jokes.

Most of the inmates attitudes change rather drastically
when they find out it's 'Soccer Day' today, they came up
here thinking they were going to play basketball..

Tough shit.

It's not basketball, it's football today,
so fuck off next door.

Mugs.

8===>

I walk out onto the jailhouse roof.

I can't help squinting my eyes,
the sun is damn bright today.

My eyes are not used to the natural light
beaming through the cage above me.

It takes a few minutes to adjust to the
drastic difference in exposure..plus i been
wearing this hyper nerdy specs recently..

I can feel the heat beaming onto my skin.

I take deep, slow breaths, filling my claustrophobic
dirty lungs with cool summer air.

 After a few sets of push-ups,
sit-ups and other silly bollocks, i'm ready to play.

 To my dismay,
my fellow players have formed some kind of
cock smoking, cum snorting alliance against me.

 Sick of losing,
all the best players have got together,
leaving me with the rejects and ultra mugs.

Safe.

Despite my fierce, relentless determination,
ankle twisting footwork, feeble attempts at organisation
and untold amounts of wasted energy running up and down
the pitch trying to defend the goal and correct all of our mistakes,
we're losing every match.

Pathetically.

The ball is being given away, effortlessly,
goals are being let in and all my 'team mates'
can say is,

"Sorry Jimmy"

:<


I'm playing with a 6 ft tall Dominican kick boxer,
that had to be told he can't use his hands to shoot,
 a 5 ft tall Mexican who seems terrified of any contact
with the ball,
 and an Italian who is absolutely terrible, but is sporting
such a jokes cheesy grin on his bonce that i can't even
begin to get mad at him..

After the third embaressingly bad loss,
i'm about to bun it off an go work out..

Out of the shadows,
a couple of dudes stand up from the surrounding benches
an step to manz...

They want to form a new team..

Apart from my brother straight outta Newburg,
most of my team is made up of non-English speaking
players.
 Considering the motley crue of bozo clown-cake motherfuckers
i was rolling with previously, this shit is looking bonafidingly promising.

We got me,
my buddy from Newburg.
a new, older Israeli gentleman,
and a Columbian..

I'm playing defence,
Israel's in goal and Columbia and Newburg
are up front, shit is poppin' OFF!

We win TWO games back to back,
both goals sneaky little set-ups from
Columbia finished by toe-punts off of
Newburg.

Third game is a draw.

Time out.

We take a breather.

It's SCORCHINGLY hot outside,
i'm sweating like a paedo in a kids playground,
so throw my t-shirt to the side.

The sight of my tattoos leads to a few whispers between
the older Spanish dudes.

"El Diablo! Ci! Ci! timoty El Diablo!"
Ok.

Time to finnish these FUCKS.

The superstar team is good.

Real good.

Their main striker is an incredibly muscular Dominican,
who's special move is running into people full speed.

Even so, we're playing ultra dope,
we got these cum-snorters
on the run..

All is going well until some dude,
that i JUST HAPPEN to owe a load of shit to this week an didn't pay,
boots the ball straight into my bollocks.


His debt was instantly paid in full.

Manz tries to front like it weren't a ting, u get me..

TRIES to front..

My legs are shaking, my stomach is fucked and
i feel like i wanna barf chunks all over the pitch.


..Mug..


I shake it off,
an get back into the mix.

We're runnin' tings.

Bigtime.

Then the same bozo boots the ball high up into the air..

Time instantly slows down..

Silence fills the air...

Everyone on the roof pauses to watch the ball fly majestically through the air
in slow motion..

..It lands directly on top of the cage housing the guards,
that just so happens to be covered in razor wire,
which in turn instantly pierces the ball.

The whole roof lets out a joint sigh of disapointment
at this utter baffoons idiotic manouvre.

Don't get it fucked up though,
we kept on playing!

The ball might be deflating more and more by the second,
but that ain't stoppin' the match,
fuck that.

Our determination pays off,
Newburg boots the now deflated pigs bladder into the goal
last minute, insuring our team finishes Recreation as
the winners..

BO!