Games Behind Bars – No Thanks!

At a photo shoot recently, the conversation of playing football in a cage was raised (how we got to that point, I still have no idea, but we did!) One of my companions plays for a rival of ours (cue much gnashing of teeth on my part!!) but the venue that he uses is surrounded by a cage and also has rebound boards. On hearing this, one of the models for the day piped up that he also played, but couldn’t play on a pitch like that – needless to say, a heated debate soon followed!

The argument for seemed to be, it’s fast with no breaks and you were always guaranteed goals, in fact scores of 15-something or more were quite common! On hearing this, the model, whose good looks faulted as he almost went apoplectic wanted to know where the fun was in that. Football is a game of skill and players should be good enough to keep the ball in play without the aid of boards and cages, also how was a 20-20 score-line a true reflection of the game!

As you can imagine, by this time, I had put my camera down and started thinking about other things. However, the obvious happened and I got dragged into the debate with the inevitable “What do you think Pete, you work for Mundial!”

Sighing deeply, as they was never going to be a winner here, I had to agree with the perfectly skinned and annoying toned model and admit that I couldn’t stand playing in cages and with rebound boards! In my forty odd years on this spinning rock, I have had the privilege (if one may call it that) of playing in both types of venue. As a goalkeeper, I found the cages and boards unnatural. There was nothing worse than pulling off a good save, only to see the ball ricochet off the surroundings and back to the feet of an opposition player who, invariably, managed to score!

So to me, my verdict will always be give me an open pitch, with no boards and judging from the thousands of players that we have playing at football mundial, you also agree! However, it is an issue that will always raise debate, so what are your opinions; would you like to play in a cage? Have you done it? Give us your opinion on our Facebook page.