My Football Story Childhood dream | Barclays Premiere Leauge Manchester United 08-09 Squad

Hello fellow football fans..
This being my first post on this board..
i want to start by introducing my school days football stories and my favourite football club back then..

It was in my 8th grade when suddenly in my school our sports teacher came and announced all who wants take part in school football team come to the ground tomorrow at 5 PM and wear shorts and sports shoes..

i was around 11-12 years old in 2005-06 was not much knowing about football but just wanted to get in to sports as there was a fire in me as kid..  i remember not having good sports shoes and i ended up with black everyday school shoes lol 

i reached to the ground went to join in the big line.. Our Football coach or you can say the sports teacher came and told everyone to start run for 2 rounds of ground then he told us to make a circle and introduced us to few stretching and excercise and then short fast sprints of 5-6 round i remember all this as this was my first ever any academic sport activity...

Short after finishing sprints we got call at the goal post to make a line and take a penalty kick one by one..
i didnt know that there is selection and trial going on for UNDER 14 with this penalty kicks lol
my turn came i ran and hit the ball as hard as i could and luckily it went  to touch the left corner of the net.. i was over joyed with goal and all the seniors liked it and there i got selected after few more penalty shoot out kicks..

1 month in everyday i used to go to ground post school 5 to 6-30 PM grabbed a lot of knowledge about the rules of the game and stratergies.. our sports teacher i could truly say was a wonderful person always motivating and sometimes alot angry even punishing and even hitting some seniors making them stand on line standing backwards and directly kicking at them lol yes this was normal back then and was part of punishment routine and you cant question your mentor..

1 and half months in and the coach announced of Inter-School Tournament which goes by name "Subreto Junior Cup" ..
all school participates in this tournament in india every year the competition starts at city level then goes to state level and then to national..

i got selected for Under-14 team and became Vice-captain for school under-14 team..
we practiced with 17 member squad .. practised everyday a week before the match..
there were 3 categories of matches for  U-14,U-17 and U-19 age group..

Cut to match day the leauge of matches hosting ground was at another school we went there with excitement for the first time..it was first experience for all of U-14 kids 

There was opening ceremony and speech by some state sports authority and then ceremony and i remember there 6 schools participated divided in to 2 groups of 3 teams each playing one another so we got 2 matches for 2 days..

i scored 3 goals in 2 matches and we went on to going to the final as we topped the group with 4 points..

Final was against a well know school team back then we went on winning the final by 2-1 and the final goal coming by the way of penalty at cruicial last few minutes we were over joyed and were so happy that we beat the best team on their own school ground... i can not describe that feeling.. this was surreal moment for me and i was still having no football shoes wearing normal sports shoes haha..

We went on to meeting our school principle and demanded a party our principle she congratulated us and gave us a treat from school  school bus took us all to the nice restaurant were we eat so much lol all had 3-4 glasses of juices and ton load of food as we wanted to use every penny of school money.. haha KIDS? yeah we stupid kids xD

Next day at school assembly our name were announced and call upon stage with trophy to showcase to school kids.. we were so mesmorised and enjoyed sudden recognastion that we were getting after that... 

After that win we came to know now the next destination is to go state level competition where all the schools who won final in their city tournament will come to play there my state has 22 cities ..

3 weeks after the tournamentwe got call that the state level tournament is happening ina city 18 hours far from our city and all team members along with coach will have to go there for 3 days accomodation will be sort out at the school hosting the tournament ...

for the first time we all players were given school custom tshirts as team kit which we had to return too lol not so fancy it was decent 2 color kit..
next day we took a train with all 17 kids + 2 school staff as coach and helper.. 
we reached the city at late night and saw that our accomodation is nothing but a class room lol they just provided us bad sheets there were 22 teams staying at same school...

Next morning we had a ceremony and seeing all 22 teams there was fascinating to me..
in 22 teams tournament there is only one way direct elemination... in order to reach to finals you have to keep winning games one lose and you are out..

our match was next day against a city which i never heard of before lol the score went on to 0-0 and the penalty decider came and we lost the penalty by 3-1 i too missing the penalty and giving staright kick to the hands of goal keeper lol embarassing and all the hope got lost my fellow team players even cried and got emotional i remember and there we are lost the first match and out of the tournament.. our coach was angry as most our penalties got direct to the hands of goalie..

we had full day now to explore the city which we did enjoyed the food there and next morning took train back to our city with diappointment...

This is how football fever started to me after this till my 12th grade i went on to play from my school team in all 3 U-14,17 and U-19 we won all 4 years that i played and went on to play to state level and even won few matches there but never got close to final or semis..

all i have is the memories the daily practice days going to different school for practice from being junior to becoming a senior player in school and all the different cities i fortunately able to visit and see because of football... i owe alot to this sport and how it shaped me and my life..

My Favourite Football club from the intial days was and always been MAN UTD what a squad it was back then in 08-09

Nani
tevez
Rooney
C Ronaldo
berbatov
carrick
anderson
evra
o'shea
vidic
fletcher
ferdinand
neville
and the legend van der sar

i followed football and played at my best abilities till my school days post my entry to college slowly football was not much active part of my life as college and then shifted to work so practise sessions and all stopped...
its not that i dont follow football right now i do but not that keenly as i used to when i was playing...
but man still when i remember Barclays 2008-10 time Chelsea,Arsenal,Man Utd,liverpool what team and squad they had that was the best era when the preiemer leauge really shined .. 
Miss all those golden days and memories and still have all my football school buddies in touch with me..

i wish to get back on field someday soon and hopefully the fitness wont let me down...
there are quite a few box football grounds built in my city will surely go on to play there very soon as writing this post got me feel all nostalgic and all flashbacks of those time haha

Thanks for reading :) Do thumbs up or comment if you read it till here .. and do share your football stories and how you get in to this sport?