It all became too serious, too quickly. One moment I was enjoying the brilliance of the autumn lunchtime and admiring a particularly neat one-two that had cut through our defence during a five-a-side football friendly. The next I was offering out one of my colleagues from IT.
What had happened was that I tackled him in a corner of the pitch where some leaves had collected. I slid on them and crunched into his legs, throwing him into the wire fence. He got up, told me imagined truths about myself that small children should not read about in grown-up newspapers, and I disclosed to mass consternation that I, for one, would never confuse him with that nice Mahatma Gandhi or anyone else who made non-violence the centrepiece of their lifestyle philosophy. Or words to that effect.
In hindsight, it is possible that I unconsciously resented his pace and took his legs away. It is equally possible that I was unconsciously motivated by the fact that he (let's call him Gervase) had not repaired my computer keyboard as fast as I wanted him to earlier that week.
During the stand-off, I looked to my team-mates for solidarity. Quite sensibly, they all seized this moment to make careful studies of their bootlaces or the architecture of the church behind the pitch. After all, Gervase from IT was not a man you wanted to cross, so long as you valued your broadband connection.
And in any case, having a stand-up row with a colleague over lunchtime footie is doomed to result in post-sporting tristesse. Even today when Gervase and I pass each other in the corridor, I always affect an interest in a bit of lint on my sleeve.
The other point is that playing sports can predispose you against new workmates. Consider the case of "Rex". Would he shut up when he joined our football matches? He would not. He was all - "Over here! Man on! To me, to me, to me! Nice through ball, Jaffa Cakes! To me, to me, to me!" I had never played with Rex before and thought that not only was he a complete tool, but that his partner was a chump and anyone who spoke well of him had poor judgment. Only six months later, after working with him quite closely, did I realise that "Rex" wasn't at all the big-gobbed git he appeared on the football field, but a charming, deeply caring, though possibly pathologically over-compensating, co-worker.
I also didn't care for another colleague with whom I played football. Let's call him "Oscar". He was and is an annoying little herbert who was so keen to show his (frankly mediocre) dribbling skills that he NEVER EVER EVER passed the ball to anyone, damn him! DAMN HIM! As a result of the way he played football, I could never think that anything he could EVER DO IN THE OFFICE WOULD BE INDICATIVE OF ANYTHING BUT HIS INTENSE SELFISHNESS AND SO CONTINUE TO GIVE HIM A WIDE BERTH. (It's quite possible that Gervase has tampered with the key lock on my keyboard, damn him. Really mature, Gervase. EVER THOUGHT ABOUT GROWING UP? OUR ROW WAS FOUR YEARS AGO, YOU OAF, JUST LET IT GO.)
Playing competitive sports at work, I believe, tells us more than we really want to know about the people with whom we are obliged to work. It makes their neuroses all-too-evident. That is why all the squash ladders, five-a-side leagues, "fun" runs, shove -halfpenny contests and chess clubs that you can take part in at work are not always the blissful bonding sessions that the people in human resources would suggest.
Why, given these perils, do we bother with workplace-based sports? The only sensible answer (other than keeping fit) is obvious: to suck up to the boss when he/she goes lunchtime jogging before returning to max the envelope in the pm, or whatever it is bosses do all afternoon. Here are a few tips for those hoping to secure advancement by such means:
To demonstrate your youthful vigour and suitability for a top job you've been seeking, overtake him/her now and again, but let him/her get away from you in the final stretch back to the office. By all means keep up banter as you run, but don't use the opportunity to ask for a pay rise, or explain the plot of The Departed.
What's more, to show that you're an alpha male or female equivalent, don't wind up back at the office so out of breath that you can't speak. That would indicate - in the pathetic, ageist working environments so prevalent in modern Britain - that you're an oldster and quite possibly dead wood who won't figure in the new employment matrix that the HR people are drawing up as you read this.
And if you have communal showers, don't stare at his/her bits. Because you'll be thinking about them in every fully-clothed meeting you have with him/her subsequently, which won't help your promotion prospects.
All these potential pitfalls explain why nowadays I rarely exercise with colleagues. All I have now are a few tears and work-related football memories preserved in video footage. It shows me, one lunchtime, threading the ball past Gary Younge, belting it hard at Jason Rodrigues's leg, which deflected the ball pleasingly into the goal. For a moment, I was a free-scoring footballing god, the envy of my colleagues and several dog-walking pensioners, and I have the tape to prove it. Then, what's more, I was on the fast-track to promotion, on the conveyer belt to success. Now I do yoga outside worktime, which quite possibly demonstrates that I'm not the go-getter I should be. But at least the rage that I displayed in a shameful moment in the autumn of 2003 is no longer likely to rear its ugly head. Unless, of course, someone does a downward dog better than me. Then it'll be war.
