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Run Forest Run

I was playing at left back and in my fantasy I'm an Ashley Cole or Roberto Carlos type defender. This means being light on the heavy defending stuff but having a penchant for bombing forward up the wing exchanging one-twos with the left midfielder. Having set the expectations here's what unfolded...

Picking up the ball somewhere deep in our half, via an interception or a lucky bounce but definitely not from a crunching tackle, I set off up the pitch. For some reason the way I was moving and/or the position I picked up the ball meant I had a clear run up the wing till somewhere inside the oppositions half.

I lack subtly so I'm bombing up the wing at pretty much full speed and now find myself get deeper into the opposition half with one of their mid-fielders attempting to close me down. He in an inside position and as I go past him and he turns to give chase.

OK now I'm haring forward at full speed, I've overtaken all my team mates and can hear the footsteps and breathing of the bloke chasing me. As I progress I start to work out the options of what to do as I near the penalty area. The bloke behind sounds awfully close, plus I still see no team mates, so I decide to get to the byline and execute an inside cut in order to turn back in the opposition direction and lay a ball back to my now on rushing team mates. To execute this move you plant your foot in front of the ball to stop it and your momentum then places you behind the ball but facing the opposite direction. The idea of this move is that the bloke following will simply over shoot me and I'll be able pass the ball with out any pressure.

Sounds good except that when I plant my foot in front of the ball I fail to stop it and basically keep running past the end of the field. In my mind I was arcing beautifully towards the goal whereas in reality I ran in a straight line at close to full speed for the length of the pitch only to mess it up totally.

Martin reckons if the field was 100 yards long I sprinted for 98 of them. Fortunately the field ain't that long. My only slight satisfaction came from seeing the bloke who was chasing me bent over double gasping for air and unable to jog back into position. You've got to get your rewards from somewhere I suppose.

I'm calling this episode my Forest Gump moment.

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