Between my work and my fishing and the other half Lucie, I do also play football for a club, but last Sunday I travelled up to Burton to the St.George's FA HQ to play a final of a tournament that we have been in since August last year and we finally got the dates released last month, so for nearly four weeks all the team were buzzing, I for one couldn't wait and after a 4 hour coach journey through the English countryside we reached the complex, by now everybody realizing that the time had come, a day for all of us to savour, but after having team photo's and then our coach giving us the formation and team sheet, I was to start in my favoured right wing position, the nerves started to creep up on me but then it was time to get the game face on, the rest was history.
Unfortunately the game didn't go to plan and at half time we were 2-0 down, at half time a few of us vented our frustrations at the way some of the team were playing, we hadn't travelled all that way up and work so hard to get here to go home and lose and by the 65 minute we were level, the choice words at HT seemed to have paid dividends but come the end of the final we unfortunately conceded a third goal and we were unable to get an equalizer, losing the game 3-2 we were all gutted and I was extremely miffed at the result, never had I felt so upset at losing, bearing in mind I only ever do something to win it, needless to say the journey home wasn't as good as we hoped, everyone in a state of disappointment.
But apart from the result the day was brilliant and something I won't forget in a hurry, got changed in Paul Gascoigne's changing room and had a tour of the complex and we played the final in the England squad's indoor training pitch in a state of the art dome with the new 5th gen artificial turf, a dream to play on, plus everything was laid on by Beko, Toshiba and the FA, a truly great day.
I wore my usual number 9 shirt for the match, below are a few pictures of the final.
Warm up.
Me playing the ball out from defence.
Myself tucking away a penalty to make it 2-2.
A dejected team, all of us looking annoyed at the result.
Standing next to David Beckham's England shirt.
The team hotel at the ground.
One of the outdoor pitches that the national squad train on.
Unlucky mate.
ReplyDeleteArtificial pitch Pfft!!! I know Groundsman maintain them but football is meant to be played on GRASS!!! Can only be a bad thing for trained proffessional Groundsman like myself. Worse than a poxy Chub!
Rant over.
Unlucky again.