For some reason I can no longer remember, I used to play American football. (When I joined the team I was aware it didn’t have any cheerleaders, so that can’t be it.)
Normally American football teams have cool names like the Eagles or the Panthers. We were the Crabs. As far as I know, that’s the only team in the world named after a sexually transmitted parasite.
Luckily, though, on our helmets we used to have the picture of a local crustacean rather than the picture of someone scratching their crotch.
Although, to be fair, neither picture would strike fear in our opponents anyway. With a name like Crabs you either felt itchy or you felt hungry. (Who’s the genius that came up with that?)
Our star player was this fella who was born and grew up in Canada, but then his parents moved back to Italy when he was young, so while his English was a little bit rusty, at least his Italian was atrocious.
But I don’t want to sound too harsh with him. Despite being barely literate he still managed to be a royal pain in the ass.
He was one of those charming people very quick to lose his temper for other people’s mistakes but surprisingly forgiving with himself.
While it was ok for him to drop a pass or miss a tackle, he would pop a vein and have a brain aneurysm if you did that. That’s how much he cared about you. (In all fairness he was a good player.)
I actually had fun playing football. And looking back, perhaps it is a little unfair to label some of the guys I used to play with as just thickos with a unibrow. They also had bad teeth.
