Wives & Mums banter,

A new season is nearly upon us and pre-season training is starting, it’s that time of year players & junior parents, find time to delve deep into last seasons kit bag, for some a place to dangerous for even a Thai cave diver. Many of you will no doubt undertake such task in the warmth of the kitchen upending said bag direct onto recently mopped floor to the total dismay of wife or mum, as a few dried sods of the finest Moss Farm mud splatter the floor. Surveying the scene there are a number of items which don’t require washing and can go directly back into the kit bag. First to be replaced are the gloves and bobble hat you require for winter training nights, the ones your teammates laughed at prior to training that you then never wore so they never got dirty or sweaty. A couple of pair odd socks mostly ripped but which you keep as spares for mates, straight back for them. Under shorts if it’s a kids bag from 2 seasons ago now so impossibly tight it would have him looking like a Lowry matchstick painting, and upper body armour so dried and twisted it looks more like mums Wonderbra or grandmas girdle, a mouldy scrum cap with a hum of Ami Du Chambertin, at last something for the washing machine. If it’s an adults bag a favorite pair of budgie smugglers, so back in for them also (you can wash them in the showers with your boots after the first training session). Now something for the bin bag your wife or mum gave you after her screaming tantrum, a couple of dented deodorant and shaving cream tins, half a leaking shower gel that’s coated the bottom of kit bag, an old bar of soap (hell fire how long has that been in there) a rusty Bic razor. Then the dreaded plastic carry bag which on opening stinks like a blocked drain revealing the boots so dried out over summer they look like poulaines. A bottle of stagnant water and now fermenting frothy sports drinks surfaced, together with several furry glucose energy tablets and armfuls of used electrical tape (why would you even keep that after a game?) a congealed tube of Deep Heat and a full one that had only just burst open adding a certain fragrance to the house, a pair of grotty boxer shorts obviously used for wiping down rugby boots, not even touching on that piece of cardboard which was once a bath towel festering away since last season and an assortment of laces, studs, dirty plasters and bandages. All obviously being immediately replaced back into the greasy lined Lynx charcoal and watermint scented kit bag.

If you don’t want your child or husband turning up for his first session in similar fashion then come on ladies help us out and get the kits out for the lads.

Updated 15:42 - 30 Aug 2019 by john blower