There you are, bearing down on goal with the ball at your feet, heart rate increasing with every heavy stride you take. Should you tuck the ball away in bottom right hand corner or slot it into the left hand side of the keeper? Maybe it would be best to try and place it in one of the top corners? Or maybe you should just throw caution to the wind and belt it!? These are the usual options you would consider in a one-on-one situation with a goalkeeper (they may not be technically correct, never-the-less you get the idea). But what would happen if all of a sudden a 'defender' appeared out of the middle of nowhere? What... would you do if that 'defender' turned out to be a Cobra three quarters the size of one of your legs!? This is the sort of question that was thrust upon me earlier on this evening.

The day had started off so promisingly as well. Late on Sunday evening Jasper and I had both agreed that after almost two weeks of solid work in the office and out on the football field it was time for us both to let our hair down (granted this is literally very difficult for me at the moment with my current hairstyle). So it was settled then, Monday would be our day off, and a chance for me to further explore Bangalore.

I was woken by the sound of golf clubs being swung outside my room early this morning. Its a surpassingly relaxing sound to be woken up by, especially when someone ping's a ball 250 yards with a driver the size of John Prescott's right fist. Although to be honest its even more satisfying when you hear someone actually break a golf club whilst trying to hit the ball 250 yards with a driver the size of John Prescott's right fist, just for the simple reason that you know its quite possible the CEO of some multinational company. And the fact that he has just made a fool out of himself in front of all of his colleagues does bring a raised smile to my face ever time I hear that sharp, blunt cracking noise.

After crawling out of my bed (or spiders web as I like to refer to it these day due to the amount of times my mosquito net has ended up trapping me inside) and performing the usual morning routine, I strolled out of my room, across the courtyard and towards the club house. After seeking out Tiku I ordered my usual; omelet, toast, chai (tea) and pani (water) before heading off towards the office to get a bit of work done for the day.
Around ten o'clock a plume of dust rolling down the track towards the academy entrance welcomed the arrival of Jasper in his surprisingly clean silver Ford. After exchanging pleasantries with some of the staff at the academy we both shot off into town for our big day out.

Our first stop was, not surprisingly, lunch. Since I had breakfast at seven thirty that morning, I was more than ready to gorge myself on some more of the fine food on offer in India's tech capital. The problem is though that if you are in the city itself and plan to eat at eleven o'clock, its best advise that you start your journey to the restaurant at least a hour and a half in advance, simply because of the sheer bulk of traffic that grips the city for roughly fourteen hours a day. Nevertheless, onwards we went.

Our first task was to decide where to go, would it be Fanoos for a 'Rambo' Beef Diku or Empire for some Chicken and Parotas? We chose the latter.

Our next task, and possibly most challenging one, was to fight our way through the ever increasing traffic! Oh the perils of travelling through Bangalore with an empty stomach! Testing the normal laws of physics, bikes weave in and out of you, at an array of different and amazing angles as you travel through the city. Its almost like being in the lead plane during a red arrow display, as the other planes weave around you with amazing speed and precision, but obviously this version takes place on tarmac rather than in mid air, where space is no real issue.
Once Jasper had finally managed to guide us through the traffic we arrived at our destination... Empire Restaurant. This place is quite possible my favourite place to eat out in Bangalore, or at least from what I have tried so far. The average meal for one costs around £1.70... thats right folks, thats not a typo £1.70, that includes a chilled Sprite, full portion of Butter Chicken served in a creamy dal sauce, seven Coin Parotas, a portion of fried rice and to top it off 'service with a smile'. Needless to say I enjoyed every minute of eating lunch today. But I'm still struggling to come to terms with how little the food costs in India. To be honest I wouldn't call it value for money, Id call it day light robbery on the part of the consumer!

Once Jasper and I had thoroughly stuffed ourselves we staggered out of Empire and took a stroll down MG Road, Bangalore's equivalent to Oxford Street or 5th Avenue. The street itself is beautifully laid out with bustling shops one side and a glorious garden situated on the other side of the main strip of road that runs down the street. The concoction of different smells are wonderful as well, one minute your nose picks up then unmistakable sent of Dikus being cooked over a flaming barbecue by the side of the road, then a couple of seconds later your senses are overpowered as you inadvertently stroll past a scented candle shop!
Now before I tell you this I will point out that Jasper is a very patriotic India who, with good reason at time, feels the world will one day revolve around India. But his belief that a apartment along MG Road will set you back just as much money as a apartment in central Manhattan or London, doesn't really wash with me. Now don't get me wrong, its a lovely place and has just as much if not more to offer than London in terms of variety, but for me it just hasn't got that touch of class and pompousness that a place like Oxford Street or 5th Avenue has in abundance. And that to me is one reason why apartment prices are so high in major city centers around the world.

With our stomachs bulging and our attempts to blend in with the folk along MG in tatters, we made our way back to the car in an unsteady manner. On our excursion back to the car Jasper received a call from Ravi who insisted we drive across town and spend the rest of the afternoon with him. Now although this would take a hour and a half to do so, we were in no fit state to argue with him so agreed to meet him at his place at three o'clock.


We remarkably arrived at Ravi's with ten minutes to spare thanks in part to some extremely aggressive driving from Jasper. The area itself where Ravi lives is like many suburb's surrounding Bangalore, mixed with both run down housing blocks and sharp chrome office blocks. But there was one particular building that stood out more than most, a relatively small but never the less unmistakable sight of a football stadium. Even before Jasper and I could step foot in his modest looking house, we were informed by Ravi that we would in fact be attending a match in the stadium right away. Relatively excited at the prospect of seeing my first National League match in India, Ravi lead us across the road and into the stadium, free of charge.
The reason why Ravi could get us in for free is simple, he played in the National League for numerous clubs over a eight years period, thus has maid plenty of useful friends along the way. He played mainly as a left sided attacking midfielder, reached his prime in the late nineties where he was part of the ITI side that swept aside all challengers in India to win the National League title, National cup as well as a regional competition in Karnataka. Although he never played for India, it was during this time he came close to winning a cap for his country, but a niggling knee injury dashed his hopes of a call up. It was also due to the persistent injuries in his left knee that forced him to retire from the professional game in 2004.
Walking into the ramshackled stadium I was immediately struck by the smell of burnt peanuts and sterile urine, not the most pleasant concoction of smells Iv ever smelt.
Moving swiftly onto other matter though, the game. It was... interesting, not necessarily very compelling for the full ninety minutes but definitely an experience worth having. Individually the players were technically limited, the teams lacked shape, positional awareness was minimal and off the ball movement no existent. The one shining light was the players obvious love for the game. There salaries are low, job security is always insecure since clubs only ever offer season long contracts and the mixture of different league structures and cup competitions make the whole system difficult to understand at the best of time. Beside all of this the players turn out week in week out to perform in front of a few hundred uninspiring supporters and give there all every match. The game was a disappointing 1-1 draw, with the only major highlight being when the physio's trotting onto the field with a strange looking chrome implement that look as though it had been stolen off the set of a early 1980's Star Trek episode. After some origami'esk unfolding, the object turned out to be nothing more exciting that a rather elaborate stretcher.

Once the final whistle had blown all three of us made our way back to Ravi's place, where we were greeted by his wife and rather confused looking child. After introducing ourselves, we made our way up a flight of crumbling stairs to Ravi's room. The first floor of his house is a small restaurant, now when I say restaurant I mean ten plastic chairs with not tables and one cooker set off the the side of the room. Also instead of being a first floor, its rather a run down court yard, with the rooms above set off to the side of another crumbling building. Anyway we were shepherd into Ravi's modest but comfortable room where we all sat and talked about the one thing we all have in common, football. We sat and talked for roughly two and a half hours about Ravi's playing days and what football was like in Europe before Jasper and I made our excuses and left Ravi and his family in peace for the rest of the day.

By the time we had arrived back to the Academy the sun was setting behind the club house after yet another predictably hot day in Bangalore. The day's excitements though were far from over.
As soon as we pulled into the car park and hauled ourselves out of the car, we were immediately summoned over by Beirinder and Sandeep to play football with them, how could we turn such an fantastic off down!? So with Sandeep's team losing 4-2 I elected myself to be a possible saviour and joined there side.
Five minute in Andrews fantastically angled ball from the right wing put me clean through on goal. As the distance between me and the goal decreased with every heavy stride my mind was more on what sort of celebration I should perform after tucking the ball away; maybe a Ravanelli style shirt over head, or the classic Alan Shearer one armed raise or maybe a Lomana Lualua quadruple somersault? I had decided to give the latter a try when all of a sudden, no more than three meters in front of me lay India's version of the last line of defense... a Cobra!
Around one meter long and light brown in colour, it looked like ever other snake does to me, terrifying! Needless to say, the moment I caught a glimpse of the menacing looking thing I belted in the opposite direction, leaving the ball to roll harmlessly through to the goalkeeper.

This whole situation though has got me thinking this evening. The English have always been renowned for having uncompromising defender, Neil 'Razor' Ruddock, Terry 'Lets All Have a Disco' Butcher, Tony Adams, Bobby Moore and Norman 'Bite Yer Legs' Hunter. Now I'm pretty sure that if India embraced its slithery friends and tried to accommodate them into there national team, their world ranking would shoot up dramatically! No team in the world would mess around with a back four of Cobra's... I know I wouldn't!

This leads me nicely onto the question I asked at the beginning though; What would you do if a Cobra three quarters the size of one of your legs stood in front of you and possible goal scoring glory?