As it's the BIGGEST day in the footballing calendar with the world cup final taking place tonight, I just thought I'd dig out another one of my footballing stories to share with you all - bless my wife! As you all know by now I write about Life, Love and Relationships and this story features in my book Together Forever I hope you all enjoy, please feel free to comment ...
Take
One for the Team
I’m a big sports fan and in particular
I tend to favour team sports such as football and rugby. I enjoyed watching the 2012 London Olympics
and the ‘Tour De France’ in the same year.
When I watch a sports team endeavouring to win I get really drawn-in to
the team dynamics and tactics being used in an all-out effort to achieve
victory. It’s really interesting to see how individuals within a team will
often sacrifice personal glory all for the greater good of the whole.
In football you will often see a player
being used in a position that’s not necessarily his favoured one where he is
moved out of his comfort zone because it’s where the team need him to play in
order to achieve the right balance therefore enhancing their chances of being
successful.
Bradley Wiggins won the ‘2012 Tour De
France’ but there’s no way he could have done it without the full support and
backing of his team in which other individuals put their own personal glory to
one side because that’s what ‘the team’ needed them to do.
I often use sporting analogies when
describing real life scenarios. I find
many similarities to sport in working life and relationships. Sport is our fun way of living out the dramas
and excitement often missing from our regular 9-5 day. Sport tests the commitment, endeavour,
loyalty and team ethic of the participants.
It tests the team’s will to win regardless of the sacrifices that
individuals within the team have to make. That’s where the saying ‘Taking one
for the team’ comes from. It describes
the sacrifices being made by one individual because the team comes first.
Now having said all that, I would like
to declare marriage and long term relationships as a ‘Team Sport’. A team sport where all the usual tactics,
effort, endeavour and mutual respect for your team mate is required if you are
to be a success. It also means that once
in a while one of you may be asked to ‘take one for the team’…
The first time I remember this
happening in our case was very early on in our relationship before we were
married and on this particular day Trudie was the one making the sacrifices.
Trudie was going to do something she had never done before in her life, she was
going to do something just to make me happy in our fledgling relationship. She
was going to ‘take one for our team’.
Trudie has never really been into
sports other than horse riding when she was younger. She certainly does not like football and once
even claimed that she would not have pursued our early relationship if she had
realised as she did over time how much I loved football and in particular my
‘beloved Bolton Wanderers’. I suppose
given the fact that she hates football so much says a lot about the way she
‘took one for the team’ on the particular occasion I’m about to tell you about.
It was back in the eighties and my
footballing heroes were more like zeroes at that time and plying their trade in
the bottom tier of English football. Yes the mighty ‘B.W.F.C.’ were residing in
the 4th Division. That said we were doing rather well down there, so much so I
had booked a weekend off work in order to go and watch the lads continue their
push for promotion playing away at Crewe Alexandra. Oh the glamour of it all!
The original plan was to go down to
the game with a couple of fellow Wanderers but things went awry when one of
them fell ill the night before and the other one was ‘grounded’ by his ‘Mrs’
for thinking it would be ok to go out on the lash on the Friday night before
continuing the alcoholic onslaught into Saturday with a trip down to Crewe! She was having none of it… ‘He’d had his
Friday night out so it was his turn to mind the kids while nursing his hangover
and she was going to participate in that particular female dominated sport
known as shopping so there was to be no football for him this Saturday’.
“Bloody marvellous” I said while
hanging up the phone.
“What’s up?” enquired Trudie.
“It looks like I’m going to the match
on my own” I replied.
“That won’t be much fun… do you have
to go?”
“I’ve booked a day’s holiday
especially to go… I’ll be ok, I’m sure I’ll meet some of the other lads down
there”.
I must have cut a rather sorry sight
as I did my best to cope with the disappointment. Trudie was right; it’s not as much fun going
to the match on your own and what if I didn’t bump into anyone I knew when I
got there? I was reluctantly beginning
to entertain the idea of not going when Trudie uttered words I never in a
million years thought I would hear coming from her lips… “I’ll come to the
footy with you!” she declared. Blimey I
must have looked really disappointed for her to come out with that I thought to
myself.
“But you hate football,” I reminded
her as if she needed any reminding.
“I know but I love you and I don’t
like to see you disappointed so I’m going to put my best foot forward and be
‘one of the lads’ for the day… What shall I wear?” I burst out laughing! “What’s so funny about
me coming to the footy with you?” I
noticed she looked a little upset.
“I’m not laughing at the idea of you
coming with me; I just think your question of ‘what shall I wear’ is so typical
of you and so cute.”
She smiled again, “Well what does a
girl wear to the match? I’ve never been
so you will have to show me the ropes to this being a footy fan malarkey.”
This could be fun I thought to myself
and proceeded to brief my new found match day companion on what to expect at a
football ground in the 1980’s and believe me when I say that back then it was a
far cry from the match day experience that fans these days enjoy.
My first piece of advice in relation
to the, what shall I wear question was ‘comfy footwear because we’ll be
standing for a couple of hours’. My
second tip was “wear a jacket in case it rains” because the away end (standing
terrace in those days) at Crewe was not under cover. “I’ll take my umbrella then!” I had to point out the impracticalities of
that idea as I explained that if she were to put up a brolly at the match then
people standing behind would be unable to see the game and anyhow the brolly
would probably be confiscated as a ‘potential weapon’ at the turnstiles such
was the mood at football grounds in those days! I also told her to expect lots of bad
language and crude behaviour certainly from the Bolton fans at least. I wasn’t trying to put her off, it was more
about preparing her for what at that time was almost exclusively a male domain
where it would be easy to say ‘Men where men’ but a phrase like ‘Men where
loutish yobs’ would probably be more accurate.
Trudie appointed herself as our
‘designated driver’ for this trip… “So you can get bevvied up and I’ll just
have a couple. You can drive to the next
match when it’s my turn to get lashed!”
I got the distinct impression that she
was taking the piss and this match would be no more than a ‘one off’ but her
expert use of ‘match day terminology slang’ was evidence that she listened in
to my football banter with the guys more than she let on.
Not being one to look a gift horse in
the mouth I settled into the passenger seat of Trudie’s car and got straight
into my role as ‘designated direction giver’ for the 60 minute or so journey
that lay ahead. (The job of ‘direction giver’ or ‘way finder’ was only ever
applicable on the outbound journey because come the time to go home the
‘direction giver’ was usually too drunk to find the car park let alone help the
driver find the way home).
The Motorway traffic down to Crewe was
free flowing and we spotted many more Bolton fans making their way down for the
game. Football supporters travelling to
‘away games’ traditionally show their teams colours and the thousands of Bolton
fans making the short jaunt down to Crewe were clearly evident from the vivid
displays of scarves, flags and pennants adorning the cars, vans and coaches
that we passed along the way.
“Aren’t we supposed to be singing rude
songs now?” asked Trudie as ever throwing herself 100% into her new role, this
time as a ‘footy fan’.
“Teach me some of those songs you all
sing at the match so I know what I’m doing when I get there!”
This was great; she really was
entering into the spirit of the whole occasion…
It was easy to teach her a number of
songs and chants that were often heard on the terraces as most of them are
quite simplistic in their content. They are songs and chants that are rude and
abusive in the main but simplistic nonetheless.
It dawned on me during my coaching
session with our new found fan that for every song in favour of your own team
there are at least two disparaging songs that can be aimed at your
opponents. These are the songs that
require a greater level of profanity and strangely seemed to be the one’s
Trudie enjoyed learning most… “So if we
were playing, let’s say for arguments sake Preston instead of Crewe we would
just change that last line to F*** off Preston, instead of F*** off Crewe!?”
“Exactly!” I exclaimed, bizarrely pleased with myself that my tutoring was
being taken on board by my enthusiastic pupil. “We keep the abuse simple so
that it can be applied to any team that we are up against” I heard myself
saying almost in the tone of a teacher addressing the classroom (maybe I needed
to get out more… maybe we both needed to get out more).
By the time we had perfected half a
dozen songs down to the correct tunes and swearwords we were off the Motorway
and hitting the outskirts of Crewe and we followed the very visible Bolton
traffic until we found a place to park just a couple of streets away from the
stadium.
At most football grounds you visit all
bar one of the local pubs is closed to ‘away supporters’ and Crewe was no
different in that respect and the singing and chanting we could hear in the
distance led us to the one pub that had been allocated to Bolton fans. The pub
itself was cram packed to the point where the patrons had spilled out onto the
street where they swigged their beer in the afternoon sunshine while singing
songs many of which Trudie was by now familiar with…
As it happened there were many guys
there that I knew so I would have been ok had I come alone but I was enjoying
the company of my new football buddy and introduced her to all the lads who
were suitably impressed by the number of rude songs that she was able to join
in with. We had a couple of drinks and the obligatory pie as we soaked up the
sunshine and pre match atmosphere which was building up nicely as the Bolton
crowd outside the pub got bigger and bigger and louder and louder until it was
time to make our way into the ‘away supporters’ part of the ground.
It soon became apparent that many more
Bolton fans had turned up than were expected by the Crewe officials and they
had to open up another area of terracing in addition to the one originally
allocated for us. It was adjacent to the main Bolton area behind the goals and
that was the part we ended up in and to say we were jammed in like sardines
would be an understatement! I wondered
what Trudie was making of all the pushing and swaying of the crowd and turned
to ask her if she was ok and saw she was holding a hankie over her nose and in
response to my quizzical look she leaned towards me and whispered… “They’re all a bit smelly”… I had to laugh
out loud but I also had to agree. While
I was used to being in crowds such as this, for Trudie it was a completely new
experience and her tiny handkerchief was the only filter between her nasal
senses and the ‘beer breath’, last night’s ‘curry farts’ and sweat of 5,000
boozed up guys from Bolton!
The two teams eventually took to the
field and the crescendo of noise reached a new high as the levels of hygiene in
turn reached a new low as guys took to peeing where they stood or peeing into
empty beer cans that were then discarded on the terracing. So there was Trudie at her first ever
football match with her eyes watering courtesy of her ‘smelly’ fellow fans and
a river of pee meandering it’s way around her feet and she did not look
remotely happy to say the least… I got the impression that Trudie’s original pre
match optimism and excitement was beginning to wane in the face of the
appalling behaviour of her new found companions.
I thought it would be a good idea to
distract her from our immediate surroundings by drawing her attention to the
field of play as the match was just about to kick off. “We’re kicking this way”, I told her as I
pointed towards the goals nearest to where we were standing.
“Which ones are our players?” She
asked rather excitedly. “We are playing in white” I replied. “So the ones in
the white ‘uniforms’ are ours then?” “It’s called a ‘strip’ or a ‘kit’ not a
uniform” I corrected her. “Well I think
uniform is better because they are all wearing the same so that makes it a
uniform in my book!”…
I found it rather amusing watching
Trudie watching her first ever football match and it was interesting to see how
she grew more and more into the atmosphere and events of the game and I was
more than happy to explain what was going on in response to her many questions. I knew she was fully on board when Bolton
scored just before half time and she cheered and celebrated as loudly and as
animatedly as all the other Wanderers fans.
However one thing I omitted to tell her was that the teams change their
direction of play for the second half so when Crewe equalised just a few
minutes into the 2nd half Trudie was the loan celebratory figure amongst 5,000
dejected Bolton fans. The people immediately around us realised what was going
on and saw the funny side but the ones further down the terrace were all
looking round to see the very brave or very stupid Crewe fans that were
celebrating in our part of the ground and they were determined to dish out some
good old 1980’s football ‘aggro’in their direction! The whole crowd seemed to
sway towards us as the thugs tried to move to where the sound of Trudie’s
cheering had come from. Luckily for us
the Police and Stewards were also alert to the ‘interloper’ who had infiltrated
the Bolton terrace and they arrived at the scene of the disturbance pretty
quickly…
“Come on you, this area is for Bolton
fans only… Are you trying to cause a riot?!”
“I am a Bolton fan! I only cheered
because we just scored.” “So you’re a
Crewe fan then?... You need to come with us, I’ll not throw you out this time
but we will have to move you into the Crewe area”
Confusion reigned and I had to step
in… “She’s with me” I shouted above all the commotion. “We are Bolton fans but it’s her first game
and I forgot to tell her that we kick into the other goals after half time! She
thought we had scored again”… “I bloody wondered why no one else over here was
cheering!” Trudie added. Does that mean we’re not winning?
The Police and Stewards laughed as
they realised what had occurred and left us alone to get on with watching the
match which Bolton did eventually win courtesy of another goal in the ‘correct’
nets and Trudie really, really celebrated that one!
As we filed our way out of the ground
afterwards quite a few guys came over to ask why the Police had been talking to
us during the game and we all had a good laugh about the day’s events. Trudie
had made many new friends who all admired what she had done for me and wished
their wives and girlfriends would ‘take one for the team’ in the selfless
enthusiastic way that she had.
