Page 50 of Playing the Field
There’s an uncomfortable moment where they stand glaring at each other, until Craig eventually says, ‘Fine, whatever, it’s your money.’
‘Yes it is,’ William says firmly. ‘And this is how I choose to spend it. Mike, I’ll grab the details off you and do you a transfer, unless anyone else wants to make a higher offer?’
You could hear a pin drop. I think Dad is in shock and everyone else is afraid that the slightest sound might be interpreted as a counter bid.
‘Congratulations, Mr Campbell,’ I say quickly, to break the tension. ‘Lot four, three hours with Premier League footballer Ben Pryce, is yours for five thousand pounds.’ I get goose bumps saying the amount out loud. ‘Crawford United is incredibly grateful. To everyone here, in fact. We’d like to thank you all for your generosity today. It means the world to us.’
I look at Dad, but as he doesn’t seem to have recovered yet, I continue. ‘And that concludes our auction, but please stick around and come and chat to us and the team. There’s still cake to be eaten, the raffle to draw and a keep-up target to beat.’
All of which keeps us busy till Olly rings for last orders and we’re all dead on our feet.
26
It takes four of the lads to heave the money bin into the back of Dad’s car at the end of the event. The crowd has dispersed, the Crawford players have all mucked in with the final tidy-up so Olly won’t struggle to get the pub open again in time for Sunday lunch, and we’ve all treated ourselves to a celebratory beer. Dad wants to start counting the collected coins straight away, to see how we did, but I convince him it’ll be better done tomorrow. It’s not going to be a quick job.
When we do finally tot it all up, we’ve raised– including William’s donation– over eight thousand pounds. And in the days that follow, we see the hoped-for spike in season ticket sales. By the following weekend, we’ve sold close to two hundred in total, which means we can now pay off a large chunk of Dad’s loan for the ground share. We’re all understandably delighted. Dad has no doubt that we can meet the remaining amount through ticket sales throughout the season. We only need to attract around fifty extra spectators per match to cover his initial outlay.
There’s more to celebrate too, which I share with Dad, Cassie, Bob, Marge and Barbour at our Friday night kitchen table meeting.
‘I’ve finally secured our first friendly match,’ I announce proudly.
It hasn’t been easy. A lot of the other clubs have either got games booked in already or have given their players time off over the summer and can’t scrape together a team.
‘It’s against Mayfield North on the last weekend of July. At their ground, obviously.’
We don’t have access to ours yet, which is another reason it’s been harder for me to get anything organised.
Dad fist-pumps the air. ‘That’s great news, Lily. It will be so good for the lads to get a real game under their belts.’
‘It’ll probably be tough– Mayfield finished fourth last season– but it will hopefully make the debut match of the season seem less daunting. I don’t know that we’ll persuade many fans to come and watch though, what with it being at the furthest club from Hamcott and on a Wednesday evening.’
‘We could set up a car-share scheme on our website,’ Marge suggests. ‘People could offer up their spare seats for a contribution towards petrol.’
‘That’s a great idea,’ Dad says. ‘Can you ask Adam to build something into the website for that? A kind of noticeboard-type thing, so they can organise it among themselves? We’ve got enough to do already without adding the coordination of that.’
‘Will we be able to get a team coach for it?’ Bob asks. ‘Because if so, let’s not forget there’ll be a few empty seats on there as well.’
‘Another excellent idea.’ Dad says, nodding. ‘And it won’t be a problem borrowing a coach on a Wednesday evening. It’s not a high-demand time slot. And we’ll only need, what, twenty-five seats for us and the players, so we can offer up the rest on a first-come, first-served basis. Hopefully there’ll be a few supporters who don’t mind getting to the game a couple of hours early if it means they get to travel with the team.’
I make a note to add an announcement to the website and follow it up with an email alert.
‘We could make that a regular offer,’ I point out. ‘And pick thirty people at random to get a free ride to each away game.’
‘Would that work for the journey home, though?’ Cassie asks. ‘We don’t want the players having to wait around for any stragglers after the matches, but if we drove off without someone we’d get slaughtered on social media.’
‘True,’ Dad says. ‘Maybe we should keep it a bit smaller on the real match days and make it more of a treat. The lucky five perhaps. Let’s use this friendly as a trial and see how it goes. We won’t mention the longer-term intention until we’ve seen how it pans out.’
‘So just to recap, that’s in a little over three weeks?’ Cassie checks.
I nod my head.
‘Then we’ll go straight into drills followed by match practice tomorrow,’ she says. ‘I want to make absolutely sure the lads are prepared for it.’
Before we all meet in the park the next day, I get a weekend bag ready. Ben is whisking me off for the romantic night away he promised me straight after Crawford’s not-so-social Saturday meet. All he’s told me is that it’s not at the vineyard, that it’s in fact two nights not one, and that I’ll need trainers and a jumper in case it’s cool in the evenings. I can’t wait to find out where we’re going.
I pack my bikini, just in case. As well as my sandals, three changes of clothes and enough underwear for half a week. It’s so unlike me to be this indecisive but I want to make sure I’ve covered all the bases. I’ll pop back after the football to collect it all while Ben goes home for a shower before I meet him at his.
‘I did tell you it was only for two nights?’ he teases when he sees the wheely bag I’ve ended up filling.
