Ian Appleyard: Anything possible at all levels – just stay off the seaweed tablets

There might be some people in our office who think I have got a ‘wonky’ leg. They never ask about my problem because they probably don’t want to offend.

The simple truth is I play Sunday football (as readers of previous columns could be aware) and I have reached the age now where my body is trying to tell me to stop.

I don’t even have to get hurt in a tackle these days to feel pain for the rest of the week. Just running up and down the pitch a few times is enough to see to that.

When I was younger, I always thought it would be some achievement to play on until I was 40. After all, there are not many professionals who can say they have lasted that long and I don’t even eat seaweed pills like Gordan Strachan, pictured.

Once I reached that landmark, the plan was to throw away the football boots and start doing something else with my Sunday mornings – like playing golf or simply enjoying a lie-in.

More than six months have elapsed since I reached that milestone, yet I am still here, pushing my body through the pain barrier.

The team did not have a fixture yesterday morning – I would love to be able to say we were on an ‘international break’ – alas, it was merely down to getting a bye in the first round of the Cup.

Hopefully, the rest will have done me some good.

A physio told me that I have got tendonitis in my Achilles heel. Not uncommon in ‘middle-aged recreational athletes’, apparently. Whether I still qualify as a ‘recreational athlete’ or not, I can’t be sure?

Anyway, I have been trying to manage the pain but, at my age, I need to tread carefully because there is a risk of the Achilles tendon snapping and I know from interviews with a variety of injured footballers down the years that a ruptured Achilles is bad news.

Life in the Sunday League has always had its up and downs. Unfortunately, there have been more downs than ups in the last few years.

My team, who I shall refer to only as ‘The Gifted’ (in order to spare embarrasment) were relegated at the end of last season.

Bizarrely, a number of team-mates were convinced that relegation ‘might not be a bad thing’ and talked about ‘coming back stronger’ with a new set of players.

Hang on, hang on I would often say. I think we’re all getting confused with the mantra delivered by chairmen, players, and managers at professional clubs in the wake of a relegation in the Football League.

This was never going to be a situation like at Leeds or Sheffield United where the end of a bad season allows a club to sell or release players, restructure its wage bill, and come back financially stronger. We were going to be stuck with the majority of the same players, many of whom were no longer ‘on the way up’, to put it politely.

Yet we entered this new season with fresh optimism, buoyed by the arrival of a few younger players. Granted, they were not being courted by Premier League clubs but still, they were all willing to have a go!

Three games in and we have still to pick up a single point. Mind you, we have been ahead in two of our three games and thrown the lead away.

Cliches abound in the post-match discussions. The funniest, by far, came from one of our oldest spectators, speaking about a defender who had been caught in possession leading to a goal.

“You simply cannot afford to make mistakes like that – not at this level of the game!” he mused without a hint of irony.

What level of the game, exactly? It is flattering to think that ‘lower levels’ of the game may actually exist! Or perhaps, I am being a little unfair on all of us?

It undoubtedly takes real character to get out of bed on a Sunday morning, maybe with a hangover, to run around a windswept field in shorts, seeking a rare victory.

We have even lost one player with a broken leg who simply tripped over his own boot. That underlines the scale of the risks involved.

After three defeats in a row, it is difficult to imagine a promotion push. A couple of players have thrown their dummies out of their pram and stopped coming – clearly believing they belong at a higher level. However, if I was them, I wouldn’t be so confident.

On a positive note, there are signs that some of the younger players are getting to grips with the league.

However, ‘Aidy’ the winger still needs to stop threatening opponents when he loses a tackle and ‘Martin’, the new goalie, needs to remember that he is no longer playing five-a-side football and can venture beyond his six-yard line.

In attack, we have a striker who only recently arrived in the UK from Jamaica. He looks like Emmanuel Adebayor and sometimes even plays like him. But he doesn’t fully understand the offside rule and is as predictable as a lottery draw.

Once a striker and a goalscoring midfielder, yours truly is now a Grumpy Old Man at full-back trying to help bring the best out of those around him.

Columns like this won’t help, I hear you say, but don’t worry, the majority of our players cannot even read (that’s a joke!!).

Still, I am going to finish on a positive note, the seeds of which were planted in my mind during an interview this week with the Doncaster Rovers’ chairman John Ryan.

Ryan insists that that there is ‘no need to panic’ at the Keepmoat Stadium despite a run of 19 games without a victory ahead of this weekend’s clash with Crystal Palace.

He also pointed out that Burnley waited five games for a win in the season they won promotion to the Premier League and Blackpool took only one win from the first 11 when they won promotion from League One. He concluded by saying “Anything is still possible!”

‘The Gifted’ will take heart from that.

Just wish we had the money to sign a few loan players.