We trained a lot that following week; the humiliation the Woodford Wanderers suffered in giving blowjobs to the victors of our friendly match burnt into every aspect of our waking moments, and even as I was fucking my girlfriend, the vivid memories of the swell of his cock and the tickle of his pubic hair on the end of my nose, was innermost in my mind.
In truth, I think I found the game exciting too, and relished to be back on that field of play, longing to right the wrongs of our 5-0 drubbing. We had a workmanlike team, without the natural flair of a creative midfielder, but the rule changes made it difficult to recruit. After all, why would a talented player want to join a team that had finished second-from-bottom the last two seasons and just been humiliated in their friendly match? Particularly as the losing team now had punishments to endure, that for straight men was bordering on humiliation.
It wasn't just blowjobs we faced either: they were for the friendlies. For league matches the victorious team would be sodomising the losers and there were weekends allocated during the year for "special" celebrations, while a four-goal victory or greater allowed the winning team to issue "spankings" just as their team had been spanked. And the cup winners had all night with the losers. It was quite daunting, but the league wanted to drive up standards and they thought by increasing the incentive to win, the teams would adopt more effort in the matches, and the quality of the football would rise.
The opening match of the league season would not be an easy one: away to Sunnyside Cross FC who had come third in the league the year before. Their team had bulked out considerably, the beefy striker who was strong and uncontrollable in their emphatic 6-0 victory last season was stronger and full of rippling muscle. He eyed me as we lined up, and sent a few crunching tackles my way in the first few minutes.
We did well to hold them off until half-time, but as the team tired in the second half, they got their goals and the final score of 4-1 flattered us not them.
We knew the implications: tired and exhausted our coach gave us a pep talk in our changing room; we needed to improve, we needed to track midfield runners and we all needed to be fitter. But our ten minutes of cooling down was over before it felt like it had begun. A bang on the door woke us from our heated discussions. "Get your fucking arses in here, losers!"
I took a deep breath. At least we had avoided the spanking punishment again. "Be out soon," the captain shouted back as I looked around the room. Shirtless sportsmen, all with bulging muscles looked almost broken. We had expected to hold them to a draw at least and yet had been overpowered by their relentless attacks and insatiable drive to win.
"Come on. We got some losers to fuck!"
It was all part of the game; they were right to impose their victory on us, as had we won we would have done the same. But it exposed our weaknesses as a team: unless we found a way to improve, and quickly, our Saturdays would see us on the receiving end of a lot of cocks.
"I'm not going," Terry spat. "This is a stupid idea and I'm not being buggered. The blowjobs were bad enough. The league can fuck off if they think ..."