Groups of human beings get­ting together whether it be at work, play, on the field (pitch, here in Eng­land), or at a bar (pub — Eng­land) the ten­dency for com­pe­ti­tion exists. The sec­ondary Eng­lish school I cur­rently attend for the reg­u­lar 9–5 employ­ment is no dif­fer­ent. In an attempt to social­ize with my new cowork­ers in this stranger-than-I-ever-thought-possible coun­try I began attend­ing the Fri­day foot­ball (for those Amer­i­cans read­ing: soccer.)

Now, the Eng­lish are known for their reserved­ness and their cor­dial­ity. These things I made sure I attended to before com­ing — seek­ing out the orga­nizer of the event, procur­ing a for­mal invite to attend, etc. When I arrived every­thing was great. I was imme­di­ately accepted into the group, hands were shaken, names were exchanged, and every­thing was fine until just after teams were cho­sen. That’s when it started.

All cor­dial­ity was thrown out the win­dow. No rela­tion­ships were hon­ored except for those that were now in place: team­mates and oppo­nents. The gym floor squeaked with shoes and yelling across the room ensued. “Square!” “Line!” “Clear it out!” “Here!” The phys­i­cal­ity of the game was imme­di­ately appar­ent as elbows, arms, and mid­sec­tions were com­ing at me any­time I was near the ball, and other times as well.

We played for nearly two hours, and this was with some men nearly 60 whilst oth­ers were around my age — mid twen­ties. Nobody was watch­ing, it was only for our­selves. As it seemed it was the vent­ing point of the week. These two hours sweat­ing and pound­ing away on the gym floor were an escape from the stresses of the week. A mediocre Maths teacher turned into a defen­sive god that evening, while I stood back in awe as grown men crashed into each other, yelled in each other’s faces, and humil­i­ated one another only to smile and shake hands at the end.

That was the strangest part! We all smiled at each other when it was over by exchang­ing pleas­antries like, “have any big plans for the week­end?” It seemed like no one had even known that the last two hours existed. Or per­haps they did exist, but only in that stress-free, heaven-like place where com­pe­ti­tion cre­ates gods from Math teachers.

Dumb­founded, I showed up at school the next week and while I was walk­ing through the halls I met one of my new foot­ball mates. “Com­ing to footie on Fri­day?” was his curt greet­ing to me. Step­ping back I replied, “I bet­ter.” I haven’t been dis­ap­pointed yet.