ONLY this week, on a rare lunch break in Perth, I overheard a seemingly ordinary teenager inform her walking companion that only old people know how to tie laces these days. I genuinely hadn’t realised that well-secured shoes are a generational thing. Stuff changes, I guess, like fashion and Opal Fruits and skills for human survival. I just never thought not tripping over would be cut from the programme.

To the uninitiated, of course, a change is as good as a holiday. But this card-carrying inconsistency has had day trips to Dalmarnock with greater positive impact than some of the more transformative moments of recent years. In fairness to change, I’m not exactly the adaptable type. If there’s any chameleon blood in my veins, I only got the clammy hands and swivelling eyes.

Of course, I’ve become more accepting of change lately, given its starring role in my recovery, and, while I wouldn’t quite say I’ve courted it, there’s a mark on my dance card that looks suspiciously like its penmanship. But, in spite of my experience of the joy that can come from upheaval, I still get edgy any time the status quo is even inadvertently challenged, which is probably why Francis Rossi has me on speed dial. Somehow, I just love things the way they are: even if that’s not quite the way I want them to be. Stupid, I know, but what’s that phrase about the devil you know?

As a species, we’re built for flexibility. OK, my skeleton can’t quite downward-facing dog like it used to, but our insides alone are like putty in a panini press. From birth, our mushy brains have enough connections to pick up the sounds of the mother tongue to which it is born. I have the potential to be Armenian; I was just spawned a bit out of context.

That’s the one thing I love about change though: it’s not exactly choosy. It’s the dude at the party with the Breast Inspector t-shirt and the look that says he’s new on the job. You want change, it’ll make itself available to you – just sometimes not quite in the manner you expect. I mean, it’s got to have some standards, right? But for this week’s adventure, I went along to try a sport that’s taking change and running with it – or ambling in its direction.

Milngavie Football Club isn’t just the team that spelling can’t tame, it’s the organisation that defies all logic by actually living up to its motto. Football for all, they claim, and that’s pretty much what the club offers. Established in 1988 with that decade’s greatest of social motives – to keep kids off the streets – Milngavie FC now boasts 33 teams on its ever-expanding roster. And wouldn’t you blow your own brass, if you not only brought the moderately attractive game to the usual crowd but focused your efforts on widening the net to draw in all those for whom the sport isn’t ordinarily an option? I tell you, you’d hear my trumpet all the way down to the Gallowgate for such an act of progressive thinking.

You’d be forgiven, I reckon, for thinking that football is played solely by young, lithe men with million-pound egos, since the game’s marketing department hasn’t often stepped outside that testosterone-fuelled realm. Sure, there’s always been the cider bottles for goalposts and Sunday league crews bringing the ball back to the parks, but for large swathes of society, the sport exists only as a memory of more metabolically sound days. Like all things, though, change works best when we adapt the game rather than the player, and that’s just what walk football does for a new team of an older generation.

Caroline Diaz, Milngavie FC’s walk football coach, welcomed me along to their weekly game to see just how easy it is to open the playing field to those who probably thought their scoring days were over. But, for this mascot with ambition, who had never toed a ball in her athletic career, it was more an opportunity to try putting her feet where her mouth was. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been an active armchair footballer since the days of the Tennent’s Sixes. I chewed a hole in the knee of a decent pair of jeans during a particularly tense Old Firm game. Luckily, it was grunge season and I could pass them off as an alternative lifestyle choice.

Never having transferred my oft-vocalised tactical nous on to the pitch though, I admit I wasn’t confident about coming off the bench. Caroline talked me through the rules first, before handing me a swanky red bib and inviting me to join my team. Based at Allander Leisure Centre’s five-a-side facility, Milngavie’s FC’s walk football club is the only such programme in Central Scotland. Open to all over-50s, regardless of gender or experience, it launched last year and has been hitting the back of the net for its members ever since – although that net is guarded more fiercely than a premature bear cub. No-one is turned away and the teams are as many a-side as the crowd allows. For my first game, 12 were fielded, mostly regulars, judging by the banter and how quickly they picked up speed. As the name suggests, there’s no running or jogging allowed in play, but power walking makes the cut and some of that walking is pretty bloody powerful.

Once the ball hits the turf, it’s difficult to remember that the game has been modified, as passions flare like well-worn bell-bottoms and youthful spirit feeds the flames. The ball must stay below head height, tackling is verboten, and any violations of the speed restrictions result in a free-kick but, for the most part, it’s just a game of football.

As is my wont – if not my want – I managed to stay well off the ball with my usual finesse, but luckily everyone else was as involved as I was devolved and both teams were there for the battle, in what I’m sure had been billed as a friendly. From those who had surely worn the knee-high socks before to those for whom football was as new as the soles of my squeaky trainers, by the time the hour-long session had its whistle blown, the squad was ready for an early bath and bed – or at least this left-fielder was.

Maybe change and I will never be natural team-mates but I’ll no longer contest its place in the starting line-up. Walk football reminded me that, with the right mindset and a few tweaks, nothing can outrun us – so nothing ever should. And I reckon that’s a goal for which we should all be shooting.

To give walk football a try, contact Caroline on milngaviefootballclub@hotmail.com.