I always loved football as a child. My grandad played to a pretty decent standard as a teenager, and my dad took me to my first ever game when I was six years old. Only problem was, I was never any good at it.
Cast your mind back to 2013 (or don't, I don't particularly enjoy doing it either). I was ten years old and a bit too nerdy and uncool to play for any of my local sunday league teams. I also couldn't get into the school team, quite annoying considering there was only about 40 people in my year.
But going for an hour to my local pool once a week really wasn't filling the void left by my lack of ability with a ball at my feet. I needed a bit more
I did however, have a fondness for swimming at that time. My grandad taught me when I was very young (his second, and probably last, mention in this article and the Courier overall) meaning I never had to endure the pain of lessons or even worse, school lessons.
This all culminated in me actually being a decent swimmer by age ten. But going for an hour to my local pool once a week really wasn't filling the void left by my lack of ability with a ball at my feet. I needed a bit more.
Luckily for me, Rotherham's Water Polo team were advertising for players. Seemed like a chance to finally be decent at a sport. Football was suddenly out the picture a bit. I still went to watch Rotherham play, but League One every saturday wasn't much compared to actually playing a sport.
So I signed up and all of a sudden I'm part of a sports team. The excitement of Wednesday nights, two hours of water polo with my new friends. The sadness of failing a football trial at age 8 was now nothing but a memory.
For three or so years this affair with water polo continued. I played a few tournaments, became a pretty good swimmer, made a few friends, but I found I wasn't getting very good at water polo. The fun was starting to wear off and a certain someone, or something, was coming back into my life.
Football hadn't exactly gone away, I still watched Rotherham weekly (very painful, as we were now in the Championship) and I still played in the park with my friends.
Football hadn't exactly gone away
But when I was in year 8, the chance actually came to play with the school team. I did pretty badly and we lost, but the fun of actually playing football with my friends trumped any water based success from the previous three years.
Things then got even better, I was asked by my friend to play for his sunday league team (not because I was good they just hadn't got enough players) and obviously I said yes.
So, by this point, football had won me over and my water polo love affair ended. I gave it up and never played again, in fact I didn't step foot in a swimming pool for good a while.
I somehow went on to do four seasons of sunday league, turning into the world's most average to below average footballer. My first love had won me back after all.
This isn't to say I hated water polo, it just didn't have the long term affection of football. In reality the swimming pool just couldn't compete with a rainy sunday morning, a muddy pitch and losing 15-2 after travelling half an hour for an away game (true story).
So moral of the story? I guess don't cheat? I think that's what this is getting at.