Who to avoid in your team – or avoid being – on the Astroturf pitch.

The English Premier League may have returned after its summer break, but real football, aka five-a-side, has continued unabated. Indeed, the beautiful game’s unglamorous entry level is now less “grassroots”, more artificial turf with bits of black rubber that get everywhere.

Five-a-side confers numerous health benefits: one study found that playing for an hour a week reduced blood pressure by twice as much as running or lifting weights for the same amount of time.

Physical benefits of playing may be somewhat counteracted by the customary post-match pint (or three), but the community element should not be overlooked: recent research showed that it fosters teamwork, companionship and emotional wellbeing. The book Above Head Height: A Five-A-Side Life by former GQ and Loaded editor Mr James Brown, inspired by the death of his five-a-side game’s longtime organiser, is an alternately rib-tickling and thought-provoking look at the strange significance of these essentially meaningless encounters. If nothing else, they’re a recurring calendar invitation to see your mates.

By way of celebration, MR PORTER has sketched five archetypes that will be familiar to anyone who has played five-a-side. You may recognise your teammates, your opponents or yourself.

Barrel-chested and keg-bellied, he’s near-immobile owing to advancing years and dietary ill-discipline, his overloaded knees buttressed by neoprene supports. Up front, The Trundler draws defenders in with his gravitational pull then rolls them; at the back, he uses all his experience and circumference as an impassable sweeper, periodically unleashing a rocket shot from range. His straining shirt bears a banterous nickname bestowed on a legendary stag do. He is always the first in the pub after the game (and the last out).

"We’re not talking enough, lads,” he cries, before making up the crucial speaking shortfall singlehandedly by issuing tactical instructions of such bewildering complexity that they’d make Mr Pep Guardiola scratch his bald head. Regardless of his incessant, self-evident reminders to mark up and get back, The Talker will inevitably be caught out of position for at least one opposition goal – leaving his criminally noncommunicative teammates in stunned silence.

A liability. Arriving late with more regularity than Southern trains, he’s either mal-coordinated but not malicious or, terrifyingly, he’s one of those closet psychopaths who only reveal their true, Francis Begbie-like selves within the confines of a five-a-side pitch. Standing over his prostrate victim, the veins in his neck bulging with pent-up frustration from work, relationships or repeatedly getting skinned by The Hogger, is usually a pretty good indication.

Attracting the attentions of The Hacker with his slaloming dribbles but escaping (largely) unscathed, he routinely scores in double figures. Nevertheless, everybody secretly hates The Hogger for never passing or tracking back, despite The Talker’s repeated exhortations, but most of all for being legitimately good at football and thereby dispelling everyone else’s illusions. His comprehensive, non-ironic replica kit suggests that he suffers from a Ronaldo complex.

The wild card. The man of mystery. The Mr X factor. Drafted in at the 11th hour to replace a dropout, he could be a mate’s mate’s second cousin twice removed or some random dude loitering by the side of the pitch; he could be terribly brilliant or brilliantly terrible. Either way, he’ll soon reveal his true identity – footballistically, that is. Because he won’t speak for the duration of the game, and whether he plays one or 100 matches, you will never learn his real name.