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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Max Rushden

We go again: why I can’t shake off my addiction to playing football

Group of men, male soccer players playing a match outdoors on soccer field.
Playing football is a chance to escape, to forget external worries. Photograph: South_agency/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Lying in bed last week my wife asked me how I old I was going to be on my birthday. Forty-four was the disappointing reply. Forty-four feels completely grown up. There is no way of spinning it. You are an adult.

I then questioned myself. Perhaps I’m a year younger. I was born in 1979. So if I turned one in 1980, then I was 10 in 1990, 20 in 2000 etc. So I was turning 43!

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