Page 8 of Playing the Field
Of course with so much of my time being taken up by Crawford United there are other areas of my life that are suffering– namely my studies and my boyfriend Greg. After two weeks of me prioritising Crawford over him, Greg is understandably a little fed up. Not only have I hardly seen him, but when we do get together, the new football club is all I want to talk about, even though I know he finds it boring.
He wants us to crack on with planning our summer travels, which are less than eight weeks away, and fails to hide his frustration when I reluctantly admit the link he sent me to a feature about national parks in Croatia is still sitting unopened in my inbox. ‘Are you going to leave me to sort out everything?’ he asks rather snippily.
‘We can look at it now,’ I promise, because it’s not like I don’t enjoy holiday planning. It’s just that with all the craziness of Crawford United, I haven’t had time to think about it.
Appeased, he starts talking me through his latest research and how he thinks the coastal towns of Montenegro should make it on to our itinerary. And listening to how enthusiastic he is– this trip has been Greg’s post-university dream since Freshers Week– reminds me how excited I’ve been about spending the whole summer with him. He’s one of life’s good guys and I’m lucky to have met him.
But it also makes me face up to the fact that my priorities have shifted. The thought of disappearing for two months just when Crawford United’s first season is about to begin suddenly feels like terrible timing. After all the hard work I’ve put in, I’d hate to miss out on any of the club’s key moments. So as I’m listening, I find myself wondering if he’d be happy shortening our extended vacation to just a couple of weeks in Greece. Or if I should join him just for part of the adventure after all and spend the rest of my time here.
Of course there’s still the possibility Crawford won’t get its FA approval, in which case it’s premature to even be worrying about this. But I still end the evening in a dilemma. I’m reluctant to tell Greg I’m having doubts about our big adventure– I hate letting people down– but I don’t want to string him along either. I need to give it some serious thought over the next few days, and accept that I might have a very difficult decision to make at the end of it.
What I also do in the following days is turn my attention back to my textbooks, which have sat largely untouched since I started work on the new football club. With my university lectures now finished, I’m into the month of private study before my final exams and I am definitely not as up to speed on everything as I’d like to be.
‘Do you think you should put the Crawford planning on hold for just a couple of weeks?’ Cassie asks when I confess I’m feeling underprepared.
‘We’re on a tight schedule,’ I remind her.
‘You don’t want to finish up without a degree again though,’ she says, referring to the law course I ended up quitting after two years when I realised it was making me so stressed I wasn’t even enjoying student life any more.
I worked at a bank for a year while I reassessed my ambitions, and eventually went back to university to do business studies in the hope of finding a job somewhere more entrepreneurial at the end of it. And I’ve been so much happier– I’ve loved both the course content and all the people I’ve met across the three years, especially Phoebs. I’ve never felt like a mature student around her– we hit it off despite the difference in our ages.
Dad’s been amazingly generous throughout– letting me live at home rent-free, allowing me to have friends over whenever I want to and even hiring a cleaner to avoid rows about the hoovering. But Cassie’s right, it’s time to put my university days behind me, so I need to knuckle down and start revising properly.
That’s not to say I don’t do anything Crawford-related though. I still make time to design a second– better!– set of flyers, fill the Twitter account I’ve created with all the details of our player trials, and respond to the handful of membership enquiries that come in on the team email.
I speak to four rival clubs about ground-share opportunities too, and with that comes the first real blow we’ve suffered since the very beginning. Three of the prospects say they’ll mull it over, do some calculations and get back to me, but the fourth– Redmarsh Rovers– comes back with a straight no. I might have had some reservations about its cost, but it doesn’t stop me feeling disappointed.
‘They’re not as cash-strapped as some of the others so they wouldn’t even consider it,’ I explain to Dad and Cassie when I deliver the news. ‘They refused on the grounds of potential fan clash.’
I watch Dad’s shoulders slump and Cassie drops her head into her hands.
‘I really had my heart set on Redmarsh,’ Dad says, sighing heavily. ‘I had it all perfectly mapped out in my head.’
‘I guess our luck had to run out sooner or later,’ Cassie mutters through her fingers.
‘At least the other three are still considering it.’ I do my best to sound optimistic.
‘What if they all say no?’ Cassie asks, her voice wavering.
‘Don’t even think it.’ Dad shakes his head. ‘We’ve come this far; it can’t all have been for nothing.’
But by the time we hit Hamcott Park’s last ever home game at the end of the week– the last game of the season– one of the others has dropped out of the running and there are just two possibilities left.
‘Worst case scenario, we grovel to the academy to let us fit as many fans as possible round the edge of the pitch there,’ Dad says. ‘But let’s not forget our second favourite option is still on the table, so let’s just carry on with today as we originally planned, cross our fingers and really, really hope Southmoor says yes.’
This time, Barbour and his friends have volunteered to help us hand out flyers, and it soon becomes clear that word about Crawford United has started to spread. We’re no longer met with scepticism and suspicion– now there are words of encouragement and enthusiastic handshakes, which makes us more hopeful that Crawford will win enough of a following to ensure its success.
Helen catches up with me and Dad before we head into the ground, to get a couple of new quotes for theHerald, this time solely about next week’s tryouts.
‘What kind of players are you hoping to attract?’ she asks.
‘We’ll be delighted if we hear from anyone with previous league experience,’ Dad replies. ‘But to be honest, we just want to find eleven lads who can kick a ball at this stage. Of course, if anyone from the Premier League fancies a change of pace, we won’t turn them away.’
‘Let’s hope one of them is a reader of theHamcott Herald.’ Helen laughs. ‘So remind me again what players need to do if they want to take part.’
‘Just turn up on the day, then be willing and able to keep turning up– that’s all we can ask for really. Belief, enthusiasm and dedication. If we start with that, we can build everything else up from there.’
‘Thank you, Mike. That’s all I need for now. I look forward to seeing what happens next Saturday. I hope you still manage to enjoy the game today.’
