relfyoftheboro
Well-known member
I played my first game of 7 a side in 5 weeks last night and with it being F***ing freezing I knew I was going to need a shirt that’d keep me warm. Probably two. I’d been put on the Red team so started hunting for a long sleeve red footy top amongst the scores I’ve got at home.
The only one I could find was this.
And it got me to reminiscing. The game I played in last night is an evolution of one started almost 20 years ago and organised on the original FMTTM.COM. That shirt was a direct result of a bunch of strangers from an early noughties internet message board agreeing to meet up, once a week and attempt to approximate a game of football.
To be fair, some of the lads who played over the years were outstanding footballers. The majority, of which I include myself in, were ordinary to rubbish but all had a love and need to play the game. It started off one week in when “standards” made the suggestion of a game at Southlands Leisure Centre and as I lived 30 seconds walk from the place I jumped at the chance. After that first game I assumed the organising role and the game quickly grew to a point where we had 28 players, split across 4 teams and each team played 2, 25 minute games.
That pool of players then spawned an actual 7 aside team and in our first year together we were promoted from the division we were in and played another 2 seasons I the top division of the Southlands Monday night football league.
For me though the best thing about it all was the amount of people who I met that became life long mates. I did originally meet a tons of FMTTMers via the pre and post game meets up at Dr Browns but the sheer number of lads who I met playing footy was mental. So, I went on a dig through my PC and old hard drives to see if I could find an old list of usernames that used to play. I managed to find the below from a period between 2005 and 2008 and doesn’t even remotely cover all the years we were playing so I know for certain that there were loads and loads more. I don’t know if any of these lads still post under these usernames or others but if so, it would be good to hear from you.
standards, JSawyers200, bigtl_Billingham, Motown_Junk, Borored, captain5, the_needle_threader, iggy_pop_barker, Kerouac, Esky_North_Stand, sunset_over_ici, Berwick_Hills_Boro, MatrixUK, SidUK, Supernovaheights, chboro, KrivoyRog,The_GOAT, Goalscrounger, Bonus_Ball_Head, Save_50_percent, Missimo, Boro_roddam, holgate_rochey, Mickey_the_kid, joseph2001, APL1970, john_lillie, Mad_Matt1, Corruptbiggins, Fischer, shackerooni, M_F_C, extratomato, Kiwi_In_Disguise, Mr_Maz, Makaveli_The_Don, stephen1986, LIVEY, The Voyeur, Key_Toenail, Piggy_Nichol, little_piggy_nichol, JPSmoggie, THE_ANT, bindipper_ben, Phelps_E, sparko76, A_New_Era, regular_reader.
It would be class if I could add to the list of names and any memories of the games. One of my strongest memories makes me both giggle and wince. It was the time that Mickey_the_kid was in goal and attempted to drop kick the ball down field only for fischer to walk directly across his path and receive the ball full force in the face, from no more than about 3 foot away. Took him a while to get up.
I still know and play footy with some from the above list. I would say that it represents probably only a quarter of the board members who played at one time or another. If Ive missed you, apologies but it would be good to hear any memories.
The only one I could find was this.
And it got me to reminiscing. The game I played in last night is an evolution of one started almost 20 years ago and organised on the original FMTTM.COM. That shirt was a direct result of a bunch of strangers from an early noughties internet message board agreeing to meet up, once a week and attempt to approximate a game of football.
To be fair, some of the lads who played over the years were outstanding footballers. The majority, of which I include myself in, were ordinary to rubbish but all had a love and need to play the game. It started off one week in when “standards” made the suggestion of a game at Southlands Leisure Centre and as I lived 30 seconds walk from the place I jumped at the chance. After that first game I assumed the organising role and the game quickly grew to a point where we had 28 players, split across 4 teams and each team played 2, 25 minute games.
That pool of players then spawned an actual 7 aside team and in our first year together we were promoted from the division we were in and played another 2 seasons I the top division of the Southlands Monday night football league.
For me though the best thing about it all was the amount of people who I met that became life long mates. I did originally meet a tons of FMTTMers via the pre and post game meets up at Dr Browns but the sheer number of lads who I met playing footy was mental. So, I went on a dig through my PC and old hard drives to see if I could find an old list of usernames that used to play. I managed to find the below from a period between 2005 and 2008 and doesn’t even remotely cover all the years we were playing so I know for certain that there were loads and loads more. I don’t know if any of these lads still post under these usernames or others but if so, it would be good to hear from you.
standards, JSawyers200, bigtl_Billingham, Motown_Junk, Borored, captain5, the_needle_threader, iggy_pop_barker, Kerouac, Esky_North_Stand, sunset_over_ici, Berwick_Hills_Boro, MatrixUK, SidUK, Supernovaheights, chboro, KrivoyRog,The_GOAT, Goalscrounger, Bonus_Ball_Head, Save_50_percent, Missimo, Boro_roddam, holgate_rochey, Mickey_the_kid, joseph2001, APL1970, john_lillie, Mad_Matt1, Corruptbiggins, Fischer, shackerooni, M_F_C, extratomato, Kiwi_In_Disguise, Mr_Maz, Makaveli_The_Don, stephen1986, LIVEY, The Voyeur, Key_Toenail, Piggy_Nichol, little_piggy_nichol, JPSmoggie, THE_ANT, bindipper_ben, Phelps_E, sparko76, A_New_Era, regular_reader.
It would be class if I could add to the list of names and any memories of the games. One of my strongest memories makes me both giggle and wince. It was the time that Mickey_the_kid was in goal and attempted to drop kick the ball down field only for fischer to walk directly across his path and receive the ball full force in the face, from no more than about 3 foot away. Took him a while to get up.
I still know and play footy with some from the above list. I would say that it represents probably only a quarter of the board members who played at one time or another. If Ive missed you, apologies but it would be good to hear any memories.
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