Five-a-side soccer mailing list is a unique social history

The 10,000 emails of “who’s playing today” and the millions of replies may seem, on the face of it, dull, but they are a social history of their own, writes Colm O’Regan

Slowly we assemble. In through the clanking gate together, one by one, summoned by a mailing list.

It’s a five-a-side soccer mailing list. In a thousand years’ time when digital archeologists try to get a picture of life in the 21st century, I firmly believe they’ll be looking at five-a-side emails.