Th-th-th-th-thirty-six

I’m 36 today! Woot! It’s been a great career, I’ve played under some top-class managers and, at the end of the season when my contract expires, I’ve decided to hang up my boots.

…which is, I guess, what I’d say if I’d been a professional footballer instead of an itinerant TV monkey. When I was a kid (i.e. the only time that matters), all professional footballers seemed to retire at 36, and as a result it’s loomed large in my subconscious (if that’s not a paradox) ever since.

Not that I could have been a professional footballer, of course, but there’s something about the fact that I am now, officially, too crocked to ever be one that seems to be a more real turning point than arbitrary numbers like thirty or forty (though I retain the right to wail like a banshee with gout when I do turn forty). The only sporting avenues left open to me now are ones you can do in the pub (every cloud etc.).

So, the late thirties. Best years of your life, right? Right?

In World War II the average age of a combat soldier was 26. So I’d probably be at least a Colonel by now.