May 5, 2006...7:55 am
The ‘Skins’ always win ?
Was playing a pick-up soccer game last evening (after almost ten years - while it was much fun, it has left me with a sore body today morning). As is the tradition in such games, the teams were divided into ‘skins‘ and ‘shirts‘. For those unfamiliar with the concept - a pick-up game involves anyone who bothers to turn up at the field and wants to play. Therefore, since all players are not familiar with each other and there are no jersies, the two teams are distinguished by one group taking off their shirts - the ‘skins‘, while the rest play with their shirts on. Unintended humorous consequences of basketball games played in this format (particularly involving the hairiness of the ’skins’ player) are oftens themes for comic sequences in Hollywood.
Coming back to yesterday’s game, the shirts were for most part of the game hopelessly outclassed by the skins and the reason was not hard to figure out. A majority of the players on the shirts side were part of the team simply because they were too shy to reveal the flabbiness sticking out from various embarrassing parts of their body. Almost all the players on the skins team , on the other hand, had scuplted bodies that usually result from regular gym activities. This lead to a mismatch in terms of an overall much fitter and stronger skins team that was able to move up and down the field quicker, maintain stamina for a longer period and usually come out on tops in one-on-one tackling situations. In the later part of the game, some of the skins players took mercy and went over to the shirts side.
Which team was I on, you ask ? Err….move on folks - got a lot of work to catch up with !
PS - the above observation is probably not universally true. This game involved players of various age groups and ethnicities from teenaged college students to early 30s working adults, from muscularly endowed Africans to skinny and puny Indians. In a group with more homogenous attributes, the disparity would be reduced.
Tags: soccer, sports, pick-up games
3 Comments
May 5, 2006 at 9:11 am
I am a little ”confused”.
Which group were you in?
Can’t help rubbing it in.
I think most likely the skins will win, the generalization should generally hold true.
May 5, 2006 at 9:59 am
Confused: should not be difficult to guess if you read between the lines
May 5, 2006 at 1:33 pm
hehe, I did guess. It was fun pulling your leg.
Alas, that is the fate of people who spend too many years in school.
Now you can also read between the lines.
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