Cut post, 10 May 2009

Miles away from the madness of the raucous traffic, lies a court so well crafted, it’s as though a couple of “sandman”s blew their noses in unmistakable unison. This arena is laden with very queer sand, grab a fistful of it and it drops dead onto the ground much like a bungee rope, kick it and it retaliates with a kind of defence mechanism, a cloud of dust comes walloping onto your face with the help of an unruly sidekick, the wind. On either side are two extravagant posts, perfectly aligned for a typical seven-a-side floodlit tournament. They would even send the woodwork of the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu a run for its ‘title’. False dawn? Indeed, because here come the actual architectural marvels, made of iron and standing knee high, these rectangular goalmouths teach us dummies how to improvise shooting and slow down the footballing intellect and let us time warp our moves. And scoring into one of these is like knocking on heaven’s door, nothing like it.