At high school we played with anything we could find. If the soccer ball was lost, we used a rugby league ball or AFL ball; a tennis ball if we were on the concrete courts. You weren't trying if your knees didn't end up covered in blood.

Hybrid games where made, e.g. normal football rules except the goals were the basketball hoops and the ball was a rugby league ball.

Mudgee, always a team full of 11 Kevin Muscats. The week before playing them was always spent getting ready for a bloodbath and to just go in with two feet above the knees for everything. Dubbo Newtown FTW!

At uni we had an Aussies v Wogs rugby league game, and despite my heritage, being a country boy I was on the Aussies team. I was worried because the roided up Lebs were about twice our size and I didn't fancy making a lot of 1 on 1 tackles as fullback. None of my mates were worried and I shouldn't have been, we won 78 nil, battered them senseless and I didn't make a single tackle.

After the match I learned that I was one of only two players on the Aussie side who didn't go to St Gregory's Campbelltown on a scholarship. Good lesson that in any sport size cannot make up for a huge difference in class. For all you Mexicans St Gregs (especially in the 90s) basically was just a factory for rugby players of both codes, their second and third teams were producing professional players.

Aye I remember playing an Aussie v Wogs/Islanders league game in highschool, anyway the game was pretty tame until this one roided up leb charged onto the ball changed his line and tried to steamroll over the top of me (I was the smallest guy on the field but had played league for several years) so I lined him up and put him flat on his ass, he rolled around on the ground for a good couple of minutes and eventually got up and left but for some reason he never played league again. :lol:

Didn't play that much soccer at school, wish I played more ALF though really enjoyed that.

I remember playing indoor (mixed comp) the fields were small so at kick off I got a nice back pass and I thumped it as hard as I could, Only issue is it smacked the girl running in the back of the head.

I remember that! Nearly knocked her out.

I also remember stopping a Pen with my face.

:lol:

same, started playing on large full size pitch at about 9, was easily the best ground in our regional league, goal nets with stanchions, corner flags, good even playing surface plus high banks around about half of the pitch making a natural amphitheatre, plus us juniors would play first thing in the morning and the pitch was always fresher and less cut up. I would stay the whole afternoon watching seniors games and always thought they were having less fun because they were bigger and had less space to run around.

This is back in England... Throughout school I played in a team alongside a lad who was unstoppable. Fast, strong, defenders used to get hurt trying to tackle him. The guy would have scared Vinnie Jones. He'd rule midfield and I'd just sweep up around him and try to dodge the corpses he left behind. The thing was, he only played to keep the teachers off his back - never played outside of school. Didn't even like the game.

He was offered trials at Sunderland, Newcastle, Man City, Leeds, Arsenal, and a few others from memory - but wasn't interested in playing professionally. After he turned down the trials I'm pretty sure a couple of them offered him the chance to just train with the youth team and see what happened - which he turned down.

No one will ever convince me that he couldn't have played at a very high level if his heart was in it.

He's a bus driver in Leeds now.

I went to school with a guy who's now a Futsalroo but he gave up playing football at 15 or so... He just wanted to try other sports and gave up football. The kid was an absolute freak though. Fit as, fast, could beat any defender, and most impressively he could score a free kick from anywhere he liked. He'd be 20 now and used piss himself laughing when we talked up Connor Chapman, he used to turn him inside out. His only downside is that he's absolutely tiny!

Had a mate like that in league, I convinved him to play by telling him it meant he could fight the footballers (league) whenever he wanted. He was an absolute beast and would just belt guys at training all the time for the fun of it, really fuck guys up, but everyone put up with it because the team needed him. He knocked back all offers and never played again after high school and ended up years later as the guy who rides the horse around the field at Broncos games.