Footballer Phil, 82, scores as final whistle signals end of career
AN 82-year-old blew the full time whistle on his playing career last month after scoring a goal with his final kick of the ball.
Phil Hall started playing football when he was at school in Dorset and won his first medal at age 19 with Weymouth Football Club
‘I love the game of football and I was a centre back because I wasn’t fast enough to play anywhere else,’ said Mr Hall.
In Guernsey he played for Bels and Rangers and then for Sunday league sides where he was able to get his hands on some silverware with league success.
20 years ago Mr Hall started playing in the weekly Sunday Old Boys Soccer games, held at Beau Sejour at the time and now at KGV, where members of the police force and friends would play casual small-sided games.
He has never sustained an injury which allowed him to keep playing football and other endurance sports.
‘I never took a break, football keeps me fit but so does my cycling.
‘I’m a very sporty person,’ said Mr Hall.
Aside from football and cycling he has completed the round island walk 10 times, taken on the 630-mile South-West Coast Path walk twice, and did the 186-mile Pembrokeshire Coast Path last year with his grandson Sam Hall, who was the 2023 Guernsey Press Priaulx League player of the year, who also played alongside his grandfather in his last game.
Phil Hall said he was sad to stop, however the time was right and that he was grateful to have been able to play for so long.
‘It’s really helped kill the boredom, they’re a good group of lads that I always have a good time with,’ he said.
In the dying moments of his last game at the KGV, he took the ball up from defence and tucked it past the goalkeeper with his final touch of a football.
At the final whistle he was awarded a commemorative plaque from his fellow players in the SOBS, which he lifted to a round of applause.
