COMMENT | I haven’t played football in seven years. There’s a lot that I miss about the sport - from the communal aspect of it down to the sheer breathlessness of running on a pitch, thinking, “Wow, isn’t it amazing to be alive?”.

When I was in my second last year of high school, there had been a push to start an all-girls football team. Hearing that the coach was having trouble identifying folks who wanted to play outside of class time, I accosted him in the school canteen to volunteer myself for the troops.

I was made a winger: not the most talented but definitely the most enthusiastic. Despite my clumsiness and penchant for tripping on my own feet, I learnt with great pleasure the rules of the sport, footwork and so forth, never once missing a practice.