he was playing badly. He usually plays better, he said, and started telling me about a game he had played for his class a week earlier, proudly announcing: ‘I scored two goals.’

Then suddenly he blurted: ‘I wish my father had seen me. I dribbled so well that day, I beat a few players and the goals were very nice goals.’

He repeated: ‘My father should have seen me. I played so well.’

I have met this boy’s father on several occasions. He is in his mid-40s and superfit. I know this because when I was introduced to him, he was in running gear and had just completed a 2.4km run in about 10 minutes, an impressive time for a guy his age. He was apologetic about his sweaty hands andsaid: ‘I just finished doing some trackwork.’

Normal human beings jog or run – only serious athletes call their training “trackwork”. During that chat, he went on about teenagers today and how they didn’t have the coordination and agility and strength of the older generation. He had even pointed to his son as an example, adding that he would tell his son to play just to have fun.

Then it clicked. That boy, judging by what he told me at the football game, obviously had been trying to impress his father. Yet, would the Dad have been impressed? The football game at which he felt he was in good form, was an inter-class game, something many would consider insignificant. Not this teenager though, going by what he was saying. He