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Phoebe was in a Mad Day weekend football tournament, with some friends from school that had never played together (rather than her regular team) and there were three well matched sides and then one team of boys who were one year older and played together each week. Things were very tight in all matches that didn’t feature the ringers - Phoebe’s team won both encounters one-nil, scoring each time with the last kick of the match. But the older boys cut through all the other sides like they were melted butter, winning the eight minute matches by 6-0 or so. Phoebe’s team fought hard, with Phoebe resolute in defence, and kept it at 0-0 for half the match, but they were overwhelmed in the end, losing 4-0 (with a couple of lucky late goals).
It was like watching grown men play children for the most part though and comically unfair. Though I was impressed with how Phoebe took it all in her stride. Mostly the kids just enjoyed the fun of it. Having won two of the three matches, the prize was to once again play the big boys in the most unnecessary final there has ever been. The big boys scored within 20 seconds and went on to win at least 6-0 (we stopped counting) though this final was 10 minutes long. I felt the ref could have called it early, but in the last attack, the boy playing in goal for Phoebe’s side (a fantastic player who is a Ukranian refugee and whose brothers played for the Dynamo Kiev youth team and are now with Arsenal) got kicked in the face and had an impressive nose bleed. The winning team didn’t even think about going easy or allowing the younger kids to have a consolation goal. They enjoyed their easy wins, even though it was the closer matches that were the fun ones to watch.
Phoebe and her team still got runners’ up medals and had really won the real tournament of the closely matched teams. They all seemed happy in the end.
In what may be the worst parenting decision of all time (but might be the best) we have also been teaching Phoebe how to play poker. Check back in 30 years to see if she is a high-rolling millionaire or living in a dumpster behind the bus station. In some ways it’s possibly a bad idea to get an 8 year old into gambling (though poker is a game of skill), but on the other hand, if I can mould her and she will listen to my advice, by the time she’s 18 she could be taking all her friends whose parents didn’t teach them how to gamble (I mean be skilful) to the cleaners. She’s got a bit of an aptitude for it and is better as a newbie than most adults I have played against, betting boldly, not always holding on to a hand that seemed good to start with but gets worse with every new card. As with comedy, I think that in a few short years she will be able to totally outstrip the skills of her father (I know most of you think she’s done that already with comedy). But given that I have only lost money overall she might just prove to be better at doing that. We’ve had a couple of fun late evenings playing the game though. I won both tournaments tonight - and we were playing for money this time, so in the short term this is a great way to win back her pocket money (I actually let her have all the prize money as I thought she had played the best out of all three of us).
Here’s hoping we have the Dougie Howser of the poker world (without then going on to play, basically, a sex offender in How I Met Your Mother). It’ll be an interesting experiment and I am only risking my daughter’s entire life. But you’ve got to take the gamble, right?
