“There’s something like that. You like it, but you feel like you don’t have the talent for it… So you gave up early and studied. But when you came up to Seoul and settled down, you started thinking about soccer. So you joined a club and started kicking the ball.”
![“Even though I’m over 60, I don’t envy soccer star Son Heung-min when he scores a goal.”[양종구의 100세 시대 건강법]](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/08/30/126772801.1.jpg "“Even though I’m over 60, I don’t envy soccer star Son Heung-min when he scores a goal.”[양종구의 100세 시대 건강법]")
He loved soccer since he was young, and was active as a soccer player when he was at Daegu Daeryun Middle School, a prestigious soccer school. However, he gave up early because he thought he did not have the skills to grow into an elite player. As he started working, his childhood dream blossomed again, and his footsteps turned to a soccer club. Jeong Jin-seol (62), the president of the Seoul Seocho-gu Soccer Association, has been running around the green field every weekend since his late 20s.
It was the late 1980s. I settled down in Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul and lived there ever since. I joined a soccer club at Seoul Seoil Elementary School and played soccer every weekend. At that time, soccer clubs were based on the concept of early morning soccer, so they had training and games in the morning and friendly games on the weekends, but Chairman Jeong played soccer on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings for his personal business. In 2006, he founded a soccer club called ‘Hurricane’ and joined the Seocho-gu Sports Soccer Association (now Seocho-gu Soccer Association) and participated in activities.
Chairman Jeong is active in club team activities, but he is also active as a representative of Seocho-gu 60s. The 25 district associations in Seoul operate representative teams for their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, and they compete in not only Seoul competitions but also national competitions. He was the chairman of the Seocho-gu Football Association in 2018, and at the time he was active as a representative for the 50s, and is currently playing as a representative for the 60s. Chairman Jeong said, “As I was running the representative teams for each age group and playing, I had to take better care of my body. I had to show with my skills that I was not a representative with a business card as chairman.”
The Seocho-gu 70s team won the 2022 national competition, and last year, the 60s team was the runner-up in the Seoul competition. They will be representing Seoul in their 60s at the Presidential Cup held in Andong, Gyeongbuk in September. The club team, which changed its name to Seocho FC in 2019, will play at the Unnam High School Stadium in Seoul on Saturday afternoon, and the Seocho-gu 60s team will play at the Yangjae Neighborhood Park Soccer Field in Seoul on Sunday morning.
“When you’re running a business, you can’t help but miss a week. Then your body reacts right away. You get really tired and your condition is terrible. So, if it’s not something important, I go to the soccer field on the weekends. I warm up my body, kick the ball as a defensive midfielder, and sweat it out. My body feels like it’s flying. And when I score a goal, I’m not jealous of Son Heung-min, Korea’s best striker.”
Although Chairman Chung only plays soccer on weekends, he has no major problems maintaining his health. According to research results published in 2022, if you follow the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) even if you do ‘vigorous exercise only on weekends’, you can maintain your health and prevent various diseases. The WHO recommends 75 to 150 minutes of intense exercise or 150 to 300 minutes of moderate exercise per week. Intense exercise refers to swimming, running, aerobic dance, and cycling at a speed of 16 km/h or more. In terms of heart rate, it is exercise of 142 beats per minute or more. Soccer is also a representative intense sport. In the case of Chairman Chung, since he plays more than three 25-minute games every week, the amount of exercise meets the WHO standards, starting with the warm-up.
According to the US health ranking, there are not many people who exercise according to the WHO standards. This means that it is not easy to maintain health through exercise. In Korea, there are many people who only go hiking on weekends. In particular, it is not easy for office workers to exercise every day, so they often use the weekends to climb mountains. Hiking does not end in 1-2 hours. It usually takes 4-6 hours. It is equivalent to more than 240 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise with ups and downs. This is why many people maintain their health only by hiking on weekends. Chairman Jeong maintains his health by playing soccer on weekends. There are also many soccer enthusiasts who only enjoy soccer on weekends.
The fact that his two sons were active as soccer players also fueled Chairman Jeong’s passion for soccer. The eldest son quit soccer early and is currently running a business, and the second son graduated from Korea University and played for a professional team, but ended his career early due to an injury. The second son studied sports marketing overseas and is currently working for the Korea Football Association.
“Honestly, the reason I gave up soccer early is because it’s not easy to succeed. When my sons said they wanted to play soccer, I strongly discouraged them. But children don’t follow their parents’ wishes… I couldn’t break their will. As my children played soccer, I couldn’t help but be interested in soccer, and I became more active.”
Chairman Jeong’s favorite player is Lee Jae-sung, who plays for Mainz in the German Bundesliga. He said that he has more affection for him because he plays in a similar position as a midfielder, but he played with his second son at Korea University. Of course, he likes all the players who play with the Taegeuk mark, such as Son Heung-min (Tottenham) and Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich). He often watches the Korean national soccer team, as well as overseas leagues such as the English Premier League and the German Bundesliga, and professional soccer K-League games on TV.
Chairman Jeong also donates his talent. He has been running the Seocho-gu Football Association Talent Donation Center since 2021. It runs youth soccer and women’s soccer classes as well as other sports programs such as track and field. Chairman Jeong said, “We started this because we thought we should also do social service while receiving support from Seocho-gu.” It was originally planned to start earlier, but it was delayed due to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Chairman Jeong invites an opposing team every weekend and plays six quarters of 25-minute games, playing for at least three quarters. Despite being over 60 years old, he shows off his tireless stamina.
“I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had felt this way when I was younger. I feel like I’m getting better as I get older. It’s like I’m getting younger. As a defensive midfielder, I run around a lot, and I get evaluated as running better as the years go by. Of course, I can’t run like this just on weekend soccer. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been going to the fitness center three or four days a week to run or do weight training to build my body.”
He smiled brightly, saying that his life was healthy and enjoyable, with the fun of running around the green ground every weekend.
2024-08-31 08:42:29