James Brown has played five-a-side football with the same men for 17 years. But while he often knows nothing about their lives, he says he knows their personalities inside out

Tomorrow morning at about 10.30am, I’m going to fight my way through a pile of unsorted clean laundry looking for a dark-blue Adidas football sock, shake off the black rubber pellets from my astro-turf football trainers, look under the sink for an empty plastic bottle to fill with tap water and then climb into a mate’s car and apologise for being late. It’s a meticulously sloppy pre-match preparation, but I’ve been doing this before five-a-side with the same guys on Wednesdays and Sundays for 17 years now. And I’m not alone – at least half a million people are doing this every week, mainly men but increasingly women, too.

People play at schools, in sports centres, on specialised branded five-a-side pitches in organised leagues with turnovers of up to £32m a year – it’s everywhere. The only sign of action is the green glow of the pitch, the frantic shouts of “man on” and the tell-tale sign of a player walking through the streets in shorts and a large winter coat.

It was only when our game’s organiser, James Kyllo, died in late 2015, that I started to think about the unique relationships that exist in the five-a-side family.

Dads play with lads, and brothers get to tackle each other over the artificial grass or hard wooden floors, but the connection goes beyond blood. It’s a bond that lasts longer than relationships, marriages and jobs, it manages to be intensely personal but also relatively anonymous.

Although some of my team-mates are real mates (ie, I see them in clothing as well as kit), I know little of the lives of most of the people I play with. Over the three games I play weekly there’s probably a collective group of 120 people, the regulars and the occasionals, the guests and the guy who shows up once every three years. I can tell you who has a good shot, who is a poor goalkeeper, who is a greedy player, who will give their all, who won’t, who has ironed kit, who is super-scruffy, who is always injured, who is super-fit, who encourages and who moans. You see their skills inside out and their personalities, too. It’s a great leveller.

A few years ago, I watched in disbelief as a grown man chased and flattened my skinny 13-year-old son

The vast majority are a mystery to me before and after kick-off. I recently discovered one was an aspiring standup comedian with YouTube clips of him dressed and made-up as a clown – it was bizarre to compare what I was seeing on my laptop with the hustling, bustling, almost panicking, noisy, energetic character I play with every week. Others are calm and quiet on the pitch but typhoons of activity off it.

I know their first names and their terrible, identifying nicknames – Beardy Dave, Derby Dave, Derby Dave’s Brother Andy, Big Chris, Little Ben – but I can’t tell you where they live, what they do for a living or their children’s names.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brown awaits a pass. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi/The Guardian

And yet, I can tell you loads about their personality. A few years ago, I watched in disbelief as a grown man chased and flattened my skinny 13-year-old son who had lashed out after a heavy tackle from the postbox-solid adult. Players looked at me to see if I was going to do anything but I just thought: “If my son’s going to give it out he’s got to learn people will give it back.” But mainly I thought about what it must be like inside the head of a man who would kick and push a kid over.

That’s the downside; the upside is the humour and the goals, saves and passes that make our day. The moments you dwell on when you leave. What you see when you, the passerby, looks into the five-a-side pitch is a lot of people running around and clattering into each other, soundtracked by a rising wave of shouts and appeals but, away from the nylon and the boots and the nets in our heads, we’re living out our dreams. Dialogues we have nurtured throughout our football-playing lives from the street to school to Sunday league to five-a-sides. From the years when we could skip past anyone – as our older teen players do now – to the years when we just resemble a skip: immobile and possibly full of rubbish.

Throughout this time there is a voice in our head, wondering if we’ll get to that tackle, what that goal looked like, what a great player our team-mate is and whether it’s too late for us to be signed by the team we support.

I regularly get asked, “Why don’t you play less?” (Normally it’s when I’m too knackered after a game to do all the other things I’d said I’d do.)

Over the years, a range of people, including my current girlfriend, my eldest son’s mum, and a personal trainer have all asked me not to play so much. I’m sure, if you play, you’ve had the same. I know, it’s madness to even think about it. You can be encouraged to cut down your record, magazine, trainer or football-shirt collection, because the space is needed for nurseries, bedrooms, a home office, playroom, kitchen, bathroom, downsizing, etc, but you can’t be expected to stop that hour a week that keeps you alive, in touch with your mates and your childhood dreams.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest James Brown with some of his team-mates. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi/The Guardian

It’s very hard to get non-players to understand what we’re doing, but it’s not just kicking a ball about. It’s much deeper and greater than that. The other day, while I was pondering this, it dawned on me that playing five-a-side weekly over a number of years requires the same sort of commitment, drive and focus people spend perfecting an art or learning a language or an instrument. Only outwardly, the results aren’t quite so obvious. And that’s why I have never, or rarely, cut back. I assume they don’t understand what is really going on, they only see the time spent or the physical toll taken. Or the stinking sports kit in the hall.

What we are actually doing when five players in different-coloured tops take on five others in unevenly off-white tops or neon bibs is physical, mental, ritual and social. We might not be aware that all of this is going on, but I believe it is. No matter how much we might protest or even advertise it as such, it’s not just a kick-around. For me, it is the most consistent thing in my life, a factor I only realised when I started listing all the things that had happened to me during the 17 years I’d been playing football with James Kyllo.

Five-a-side players are the true footballers. As kids, many of us dreamed of playing football professionally but, unlike professionals, we actually get to play football for ever (or for as long as our bodies will allow). Most of the former professionals I know or have met (and my fascination with their life means I’ve met a lot), stop playing when they stop earning.

We play for love, not money. We play it for life, and we play it everywhere. Our kit is damp, our boots are full of tiny black rubber pellets, the soles caked with sand. Our legs are a leopard’s back of bruises. Our shirts are tight around the belly. Our heroes’ names are plastered across our shoulder blades. Our showers are cold in winter and too hot in summer. Our sports bags stay unpacked in the hall. Our post-match warm-down takes place in the pub, as does the match analysis. Our warm-up is non-existent and involves a few seconds of a stretch that was in fashion 15 years before. Pre-match, we’re hoping we are picked on the same side as certain players. Our performance is patchy and not what it used to be. But we think we played great. It’s sporting karaoke, a time and place to live out our dreams.

We are amateur footballers, we are the game. Now excuse me while I go and find a white T-shirt and a dark T-shirt because the bloke who’s picking me up has been patiently waiting outside in his car for 10 minutes and we’re going to be late for kick-off.

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