Our son has just recently found the delights of football. It started with the rapid development of an encyclopaedic knowledge on all things football. The other night we did a quiz on World Cup finals. The question was can you name the venue, finalist and winner of each of the World Cup finals since 1930. I got about 50% correct. Unbelievably our son got 100%. Added to that he managed to name most of the top goal scorers, losing semi finalists and England’s performance.

I just can’t comprehend that level of memory recall. His brain encyclopaedia is not just in the form of a football edition. He has a mini library of encyclopaedias stored.

  • British Kings and Queens edition: He can name the key details and order of reign of each British Monarch since King Harold (1066),
  • Roman Emperors edition: Recently he managed to name 30 Emperors, the approximate reign date, key conquests and which had been murdered,
  • Egyptian Pharaohs edition: Again he can name a frightening number of Pharaohs and key notoriety’s,
  • Birds of Prey’s and Animals edition: Astonishing detailed knowledge of many living creatures. At his last school the teacher would ask our Son to help with the facts for lessons involving animals,
  • Dinosaurs edition: Can visually identify a large range of dinosaurs. Can list things like which time period a dinosaur existed in, size and things like hunting/feeding style.
  • Pokémon edition: Can identity virtually all the Pokemon, which region they exist in, battle styles and evolution family.

I can just about remember my car registration number….

Anyway back to football.

Unusually his interest in football has progressed to actually wanting to play the game. It would be oh so much easier for him if football was a game you could play by yourself. His dream is to become a football goalkeeper. He has started practicing in the garden. Unfortunately he is really self conscious and is always double checking to make sure nobody is watching him. As a result he prefers to practice when it is dark. We don’t have any floodlights and the garden is really dark. This makes the practice very difficult.

But a solution has been found. A football the lights up – it runs on batteries. It was really cheap but it is fantastic. It feels like a normal ball but just glows. Now we can practice all night long. It’s one of the best things we have ever bought. Just can’t remember where I bought it from…..

58 thoughts on “Balls”

  4. Love that you’ve found a football that works for your son. It’s so much better when they get to see that we don’t have to do things the way everyone else does them. Playing football in the garden in the dark with a light up football sounds great fun.

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  8. Pingback: Balls – A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. – International Badass Activists

  10. Your lad is amazing! So glad you found a solution for playing football in the dark. Hubby has a torch on a band that fits round his head. He looks a bit like a cyclops, but it keeps his hands free when he’s working in badly lit areas.

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  13. I’ve been thinking that I need a research assistant of late … a young man with an encyclopedia in his head would be ideal! Tell him he’s got the job! You and he amaze me … that is all … you guys just amaze me!

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    1. Thank you so much. I just mentioned that to him. Silly dad initially used the term intern. It’s a term hardly used in England. He looked at me oddly then said is that like a counter outlaw, is that someone who does bad things but within the law…. I think he would love working for you. Thank you so much for those really nice things you said. I am blushing.

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      3. Ahhh … then he and my granddaughter, Miss Goose, would hit it off spendidly! She has, I think, a plushie of every Pokemon character that exists, and has every Pokemon game! Mario is more my speed 😀

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  16. I just read a section in the book called “The Library Book” about the Los Angeles public library. In that part she discusses a young adult with Asperger’s who is a Godsend to the Map Room because of his encyclopedic knowledge of all things map and atlas. I would love to see the niche your son will fit into perfectly as he grows up.

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      1. I think we should say “who says what’s Normal anyway!” Of course I was a kid many years ago when there were no diagnoses and kids were all kinds of “odd.” We just thought that was “normal.”

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  18. Oh, Blondie’s the same–she enjoys playing the game, but when I ask if she wants to try playing with a team she backs off. Maybe she and your son can play together some day–I know she’d love a light-up ball. 🙂

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