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This is a great idea, started by Bury football club, and it’s one that’s spreading through the north west. It combines the beautiful game with a stroll in the park. Its aim when it started in 2012 was to get over-50s who had given up playing football through age or injury back into the game and into exercise. It’s like five-a-side, but no one is allowed to run. Anyone who bends those knees and breaks into a trot is committing a foul and a free kick is awarded.

I had seen the benefits of walking when I tried race walking in Battersea Park. It was an organised five-kilometre race which I did in 50 minutes, alongside dozens of others doing the famous waddle. I saw how with the right technique, enhancing heel-to-toe speed, some of the top athletes can walk quicker than some of us can run, and there were a surprising number of young entries too. ‘People ask me “why don’t you just run?”,’ said one teenager who had just joined a club. ‘I say, “this is harder so why don’t you just walk?”’.

There are said to be many health benefits of walking and those apply for the pioneers of walking football too.

‘It’s an opportunity for people to play a sport that they used to in the past,’ explained Joanne Shepherd from the Bury FC Community Trust, ‘but now feel they are not physically able to, at a competitive level. So we have brought it down to basics again, to make them feel comfortable doing it.’

At 81 Lawrence never thought he would be able to play football again. ‘Very enjoyable but I am knackered,’ he grinned, ‘because I have had open heart surgery as well, so I am out of breath, but it’s really good fun. It’s amazed me, and I will be looking for a younger woman next,’ he quipped. ‘It’s a night out too,’ his younger teammate told me. ‘Instead of being in the pub you are down here.’

Health improvement specialists like Stefan Taylor helped develop the idea. ‘We know that men have this attitude of not exercising for 20 years, and thinking they can come back in where they left off, and undoubtedly they have aching knees and sore joints. You may run the risk of raising your blood pressure so it’s important that this is a starting block in a safe environment,’ he explained.

Under-50s can get involved too and I found it’s much harder than it looks, because it’s so tempting to leather it and then break into a run as you try to reach the ball first. It’s helped improve players’ passing ability too, and coach Ian Hughes who used to play professionally says there a spin-off for players of all ages, even at a professional level in training. ‘The tempo of the game is changing now,’ he said, ‘rather than just 100 miles per hour. This takes it down a level to make sure players are looking to pass to feet.’ The website is www.walking football.co.uk