Musings From The Shitter: Volume Nineteen

A Detour Backwards, A Step Forwards

There’s something vaguely absurd about showing up to play with a team you haven’t worn the jersey for in five years, especially when your usual team...by which I mean the “Masters,” the club’s sanctuary for those of us whose knees have issued their solemn retirement notices but whose brains and hearts stubbornly refuse...didn’t need you this week. The Masters, of course, is where the “older heads” gather, a euphemism that sounds both tender and vaguely euphemistic, a place where one plays not quite for glory, not quite for fitness, but mostly to stave off the creeping sense of athletic obsolescence. To feel still relevant, still slightly fast, still slightly young.

But no. This Saturday, fate (or perhaps the cruel but generous hand of the schedule) delivered me a different platform, the Bs, the reserves, a team I once captained, a place I once called home. The one I hadn’t touched in half a decade. Walking into that changing room...now overrun by faces at least twenty years younger than mine, felt like stepping into a time machine with a broken dial, a dissonant collision of past and present. I found myself introducing my name, not to old comrades, but to strangers, children really, some of whom probably weren’t even born when I first led this squad.

And there was, in that moment, a kind of odd, humbling amusement. The laughter I needed, the laughter that opened up a crack in the armor of my overworked brain. Because what I realised, slowly, painfully, and with that peculiar clarity that only comes from bodily limits, is that my brain still races ahead, replaying strategies, spotting runs, calculating angles, while my body lagged behind like a reluctant mule shackled to memories of past speed.

Five years of dormancy have made the muscles rusty, the reflexes dulled, but not extinct. When I challenged that slow, aging vessel to respond, it did. Not with the agility or the swiftness it once boasted, but with something more primal...commitment, memory, heart. And isn’t that the thing about bodies and brains as they age? The body no longer obeys instantly, but it remembers. The heart still wants, even when the legs hesitate.

We played. Not as warriors seeking conquest, but as men seeking connection. The banter wasn’t a psychological duel but a shared acknowledgment: I’m here. I don’t know if I should be, but here I am. And in that humility, there was joy.

Then, there was something more...a moment steeped in the quiet poetry of time. Among those younger players was one making his debut, a young man stepping tentatively into the arena. Nothing unusual, except, his father was not just a former teammate of mine...but a friend I’ve known since I was five years old. The very same teammate immortalised in the team photo pinned under the light switch in our clubrooms. There, frozen in that image, we stand side by side, warriors of a past era.

I didn’t look at the photo on Saturday. I didn’t have to. It lives there...a silent sentinel to the passage of time, a “quiet ghost” as I like to think of it...watching over the clubrooms and reminding all who enter of what was.

And on Saturday, that ghost manifested in the form of this young player...his presence an unspoken full circle, a “front row seat” to the cyclical nature of life. Before the game, as we introduced ourselves, he noticed my Wu-Tang Clan shirt. Yes, Wu-Tang Clan, the hip-hop collective whose cadence and complexity somehow bridges decades and life experiences. That comment sparked a conversation about music, culture, and generations, dissolving the age gap into mere background noise.

He was no longer “my mate’s kid,” no longer a symbol of time’s relentless march. He was simply a teammate, another human being sharing the field, the struggle, the camaraderie. Another name on the same team sheet.

But I wasn’t alone in this strange return. Another Masters teammate had also been called up to the Bs, a guy I’d only really gotten to know this year, in that casual, post-training banter kind of way. We drove to the game together. And somewhere between suburbs and sidestreets, during a car ride that could’ve easily passed in polite silence or football clichés, we fell into something unexpectedly rich. We talked—not just about the game or old injuries or the state of the pitch—but about life. Past lives, shared values, the weight and wonder of aging in a world that doesn’t always make space for reflection. We spoke of people, of finding joy in them, of how weird and beautiful it is to still care this much about something like sport. It was, to be honest, the missing part of my day. A quiet but powerful surprise. One of those rare conversations where you realise you’ve just built something—something meaningful, lasting—on the drive to a reserves game on a Saturday.

And after it all, after the final whistle for the Bs, I went back to watch the remainder of the Masters match. The team I usually play with. And I stood there, watching my friends battle on the pitch without me, expecting to feel the bite of envy. I thought I’d hate it. Thought I’d be itching to be out there, to matter. But instead, I felt a pride so strong it startled me. Maybe it was because I’d already bled a little that day, dirtied my boots for another crest. Maybe it was because connection isn’t always limited to the team sheet. I was envious, yes—but not resentful. I was invested. I was with them, even from the outside.

And here lies the magic of the game...it grants you a kind of temporal elasticity, allowing you to live simultaneously in multiple timelines...the fierce, fast youth you once were, the steady presence you’ve become, and the bright future embodied in those who follow. It’s not a comeback, no, because I never truly left. I’ve been playing all along, in whatever form the game allowed.

But this moment...this detour backwards to the Bs...was a gift. A reminder that the game isn’t just about minutes or scores, but about meaning. About connection. About time, memory, and heart all wrapped up in a single Saturday.

And for that, I am grateful.