“Come and play football with me Daddy” Little Ted said “I want to practice scoring goals.”
“Okay dokey Little Ted, do you want me to be a defender or the goal keeper?”
“Hmm let me think. You’re very big so you might take up all the space in the goals making it hard to score and I think I can run around you, so you can play in defence.”
“And what teams are playing?”
“Well I’m wearing a red t-shirt so I’d better be Manchester United and you have a blue shirt so you can be Chelsea. Or Manchester City.”
Little Ted and his Daddy put up the goal posts in the garden and hung the net on its hooks. Little Ted was correct, his Daddy did take up most of the space in the goalmouth. His Daddy found the football and was just about to start playing when Little Ted said...
“Wait Daddy. We have to warm up first. I’ll race you twice round the garden then we can do some star jumps and running on the spot. “Ready? Go!”
“You never said anything about running” grumbled his Daddy, as he chased after Little Ted “I’ve just had my lunch.” Once he caught up, his Daddy suggested putting out some plastic cones so Little Ted could practise his dribbling skills (while his Daddy got his breath back).
When they started playing Little Ted found it tricky to control the ball while trying to get past his Daddy. Sometimes the ball rolled too far ahead making it easy for his Daddy to take the ball away from him and sometimes he hit it too hard and it ended up in the flower bed.
Little Ted tried again. This time he gave the ball a great big kick and it soared into the air... and over the fence into their neighbour’s garden!
“Oh no, my ball’s gone” Little Ted said “how will we get it back?”
“Don’t worry Little Ted, you just need to go round to our neighbour Mr Henderson and ask him if you can get your ball back.”
Little Ted look alarmed at this idea, so his Daddy continued “Its okay, I’ll come with you but you need to ask for the ball.”
When they went next door and knocked on the door, Mr Henderson answered almost immediately and he was holding Little Ted’s ball.
“Please can I have my ball back” Little Ted asked politely.
“Aah, I was wondering who this belonged to. Almost thought of having a kick-about with it myself, but I think my footballing days are behind me.”
“Do you want to join our game” Little Ted said “We need a goal-keeper so you won’t have to run very much and you’re smaller than my Daddy so you won’t take up as much space in the goal.”
“Well that sounds like a great idea, thank you for the invitation. I just need to change my shoes – I don’t think I’d stop many goals wearing these” he said, pointing at his sandals.
With Mr Henderson helping, Little Ted got lots of practise at trying to score goals. Sometimes his Daddy tried to tackle him and sometimes he just gave a running commentary...
“And Little Ted has beaten the defender despite his marvellous attempts to stop him and is approaching the goals. He just needs to beat the goal-keeper who is looking pretty nimble. He shoots, he scores, well done Little Ted...”
The End