Alternate universe where you are a professional footballer

A drunk? A rapist? Boring guy who stays in of a night time to watch Glee with the missus? Hidden love of boys, currently kept hidden by Max Clifford? International player or non league clogger? What position? What teams you play for? In what country? Fan favourite or do they spit at you in the street? Any enemies on the pitch or in the changing room? What happened after yr playing career ended? etc. etc. etc.

i.e. i'm bored at work

But how would I know it was me? Smae name? Same face? Same physique?

Or just the very fact that in this alternate universe, this other person cannot be me, because I am only here.

Valuable contribution there.

And even if all those physical and mental attributes were the same, how could I be a professional footballer? Is it that all other footballers have only one and a half legs?

Are you familiar with the concept of suspension of disbelief at all, Mark?

http://blastr.com/assets_c/2009/03/syfy_Logo-thumb-550x400-14765.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/9ziO5.jpg

OK, here goes:

I am a professional footballer, playing for Slipe FC. However, I am actually in the pay of their rivals Megnafic FC, but they pay me to make the other players of Slipe FC look good. I play right back with banjo. The left fielders hate me because I come from the hill. Their push for promotion is in doubt.

Still, I often stop and think about the long line of left fielders with Banjo that have such a distinguished history. People look at them in awe, but they don't understand me because I'm better with my right foot than my left, and also my clawhammer style. When i was a young boy, Eric Canto said to me, there's only one club in this world for you and I said Bolloks f

lol

There's smoking on the terraces, I don't understand. Oh, it's all right, they are made of tipp-ex. The referee is looking at me askance, he comes up to me and shows me a mauve card and says "It's all about you, isn't it?"

Like I didn't spend my entire childhood rehearsing for this thread. I was always omnipotent manager in charge of all aspects of the club, right down to architecting the stadium and designing the strips. I had A4 notepads filled with this stuff. I remember the first foreign signing, a languid type named Chien Cohen, and the odd climactic effects that came about from building the ground at altitude - rain that literally fell in sheets, drenching everything in a fraction of a second.

These days I've come to terms with not having the charisma to be a Mourinho figure, but I'd fancy myself as a Peter Taylor maybe (the Clough one).

As an Arsenal youth keeper, I naturally got my chance along with everyone else, my highest profile game coming with 3 injuries and a suspension to the players ahead of me in a Champions League semi final. We lose 4-1 and I'm sold to Grimsby. For the next ten years I team hop and gradually make my way back to the Premiership but the manager couldn't pronounce my name and his ludicrous tactics in training (telling me to play outfield to improve my kicking? wtf?) lead to a bust up of epic proportions until I am sold to Turkey, finding my form and Islam until Juventus buy me as a back-up. Not being a Nazi, the fans hate me and after a particularly disappointing loss to Roma, I'm stabbed and left in the gutter by some ultras. As I recover I am sold on back to the Premiership but never really get back to match fitness and cannot take up Tyneside so with retirement comes being the guy who covers for Steve Claridge and some goalkeeping coaching until I drink myself to death at the ripe old age of 47.

Naturally, within that I become England's no1 and break the all time caps record. Not that that means anything as we go out in the second round of every round.

Hard-working, dimunitive, right-sided, one-footed, one-club fullback in the old-fashioned never-cross-halfway mould with a penchant for sliding tackles, very much based on Albert Ferrer.

I seriously lack imagination.

A centre back somewhat lacking in strength,pace and skill I manage to hold down a first team place at boyhood favourites Celtic.

My international career is somewhat disappointing,I am unable to find a place in the Italian national team - which I am eligible for through a grandmother. The most notable incident of my azzurri career is a training ground scuffle with Antonio Cassano.

In my later career I suffer from alcoholism and end my days playing for Cerezo Osaka in the j league.

With an inclination to the left, no ability to defend anything, not particularly well-liked, but given to just ploughing on regardless, my natural position is therefore at left back for Celtic.

I think I'd probably play most of my career at Salernitana or Le Havre, kidding myself that this was a pretty fine way to spend a life 'til I got home and realised no-one had heard of or cared about those clubs

Some people have heard of, and there certainly must be a few that care about, Le Havre. Don't spend your entire fictional career there though, it is a v bleak city.

yall are so down on yourselves

Dunno about Salernitana, but I'd say its probably more fun to play in Italy or Greece or Spain or wherever that club is.

i was pretty talented and not a bad bloke, but my constant moaning meant that i ended up playing for cardiff for 80k a week in the peak of my career. I used to boo my own team while on the subs bench, and was shot dead by that cunt with the bell after outlining my alternate vision for football economics at an after dinner speaking event at a working mens club in barnsley. Paul merson gave me the last rites, then shit himself.

marauding left back and 4D man

Sunderland 0 (0)
Derby County (loan) 0 (0)
Port Vale (loan) 0 (0)
Rotherham (loan) 0 (0)
Hogwarts (loan) 0 (0)
Altrincham (loan) 0 (0)
Halesowen (loan) 1 (3)
Real Sociedad 38 (0)
Man City 114 (0)
Sunderland 0 (0)

solid but 100% unremarkable Makelele-role midfielder, either a) just about keeping myself in the lower parts of the Premier League for the length of my career or b) being a footballing nomad, a year in Sweden here, a year in Brazil there, little bit of Egypt, a dash of an MLS team or two.

The former earns me enough money to see out retirement as a multidisciplinary independent intellectual, the latter me probably has to find a job.

My day today, I actually am Brian Clough, if Clough had gone on an outrageous lucky streak in 1973 and bagged the European Cup for Derby and then promptly got the sack. (unexpectedly managed to negotiate a terrific deal in unlikely circumstances, took it back to my superiors, and not only did they not go for it but they were totally furious at the prospect). This may be how Ray Wilkins is feeling right now.

:(

I remembered today a friend once musing on the literal, Mark G, implications of the question. It was a decade ago, we were bored at work, and Cole and Yorke were bangin' em in up front for Man Utd. His thought was that if he were parachuted into that team up front, he couldn't fail to get half-a-dozen goals during the season. My suspicion was the opposite, that I'd probably get my first touch in October, and even that would be by dropping deep and wide and latching onto a loose hoof from one of my own defenders. I'd love to see the Ali Dia footage, and find out what such a fiasco might actually look like.

(we are both terrible players btw - he's a bit stronger than me, I'm probably a little more skilful - but really, both slow and terrible)