I love working for Glossop North End. It has given me some experiences that I could have got anywhere else, and that will be remembered for ever.
But I'm not daft. Those events were extra special, and should not be considered the norm. The day-to-day is more mundane - e-mails heading back and forth to opposition, referees, The FA and the Vodkat League. The match-day routine of teamsheets and post-game match reports. Trying to find opportunites to get the club into the press.
I see the work as some sort of community service - the town ought to have a football club, and all football clubs must be run by volunteers. A club can become a focal point for a town, and can bring an area together like nothing else can...we have had real experience of that.
But most of all I have to see it as enjoyable. There has to be some satisfaction, otherwise why I am committing my family to my being missing every Saturday, meaning weekends away are a rarity. Their patience must be rewarded with me at least not coming home in a mood that suggests I've been banging my head against a brick wall.
It's four years since I resigned as a director. Things had been brewing for a while, with me getting a fair share of angry telephone calls, and then at a game, a fellow director and the then manager had a stand up slanging match on the pitch that nearly came to blows. It was as depressing a spectacle as you could wish to see should you wish to take the club forward. It took place in full view of anyone hanging around the dug-out area, and reflected badly on the club, shortly before an important FA Cup tie.
The reputation of the club should always be more important than that of individuals, so I vowed to keep my head down, and just get on with what I do. But come the game next Saturday, I was apparently guilty by association and the manager refused to speak to me. Given my job was to gather the team sheets, and relay information to him, this made things very difficult. And we lost 5-0
It was the tipping point. Bad results I can take, they are part of the game - but the fun is gone when people start having a go at you, and this was now more like a bad job and I was taking the ugly bits home. It was time to walk away. So I did.
If a similar situation developed, I would walk away again. I think I have a positive influence on the club, but it has to have a positive influence on me in return.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Monday, 16 August 2010
One for the grandchildren
No-one knew it as it happened very quietly, but on Saturday 14 August 2010 I fulfilled a near lifelong ambition. At the age of nearly 40, I made my first appearance on a club's team sheet for the FA Cup.
The FA Cup, or to give it the official name,'FA Cup sponsored by E-on' has lost its lustre to most in recent years. Why? Well it can be partly explained by that horrid official name, but mostly it is because it has been usurped by the behemoth Premier League, which because of the prize money involved, has now become more important to the clubs. Coming 7th rather than 10th is now more vital than actually winning a pot. (My own Premiership preference, Manchester City were the first to adopt this approach, from 1976, but forgot about the league position bit).
The degrading of the "oldest cup competition in the World" has advanced so far now that this season, not only will the Premiership not have finished when the final is played, as has happened before, but in fact there is a full set of Premiership fixtures scheduled on the day of the final. That this disgraceful timetable has not warranted even a single tweet from journalists further indicates the Cup's new standing.
But for those of us of a certain age, the FA Cup still matters, and always will. The Cup Final was the first game we ever saw on TV (1977) for the majority of us in their late 30s and above, and the only game we saw all year. It provided lifetime memories like Alan Sunderland's last minute winner, Tommy Hutchinson scoring at both ends and Trevor Brooking's header whilst making household names of hitherto unknown players like Roger Osbourne.
Because of this, when I was growing up, I wanted to play in the FA Cup. The final, preferably. Sadly, I was never even nearly a good enough player though to even make the early rounds.
Latterly, as the Cup has become less relevant to the public, it has remained relevant to me as I got involved at Glossop North End. A couple of wins in the early rounds could mean a couple of thousand pounds for the club, and when GNE were in dire straights, this was certainly welcome. I remember only too well the gloom around the place when there was a Preliminary Round defeat to Ludlow Town, who had looked eminently beatable.
And it is that involvement with GNE that has allowed me, sneakily, to finally tick another box on the list of things I want to happen before I die.
My role has many facets, but handily two of them are assisting in the player registration forms and completing the team sheet before a game. So pre-season, I filled in my signing-on form - I am now possibly the oldest player registered with the Vodkat League - and then before our tie with Wigan Robin Park on Saturday,once the proper team had been entered onto the sheet, I added my name to the list. Teams are allowed seven subs in the FA Cup, but rarely pick more than five, extraordinarily six, so there I was - in substitute number seven heaven.
I didn't tell anyone, and I didn't put myself on the printed list for the clubhouse window. But I did keep the clubs copy of the official teamsheet, and this will be going in a frame and kept safely in my possession as proof on my involvement in what in truth was an ordinary game, but marks a special moment personally in my continuing love affair with the competition.
The FA Cup, or to give it the official name,'FA Cup sponsored by E-on' has lost its lustre to most in recent years. Why? Well it can be partly explained by that horrid official name, but mostly it is because it has been usurped by the behemoth Premier League, which because of the prize money involved, has now become more important to the clubs. Coming 7th rather than 10th is now more vital than actually winning a pot. (My own Premiership preference, Manchester City were the first to adopt this approach, from 1976, but forgot about the league position bit).
The degrading of the "oldest cup competition in the World" has advanced so far now that this season, not only will the Premiership not have finished when the final is played, as has happened before, but in fact there is a full set of Premiership fixtures scheduled on the day of the final. That this disgraceful timetable has not warranted even a single tweet from journalists further indicates the Cup's new standing.
But for those of us of a certain age, the FA Cup still matters, and always will. The Cup Final was the first game we ever saw on TV (1977) for the majority of us in their late 30s and above, and the only game we saw all year. It provided lifetime memories like Alan Sunderland's last minute winner, Tommy Hutchinson scoring at both ends and Trevor Brooking's header whilst making household names of hitherto unknown players like Roger Osbourne.
Because of this, when I was growing up, I wanted to play in the FA Cup. The final, preferably. Sadly, I was never even nearly a good enough player though to even make the early rounds.
Latterly, as the Cup has become less relevant to the public, it has remained relevant to me as I got involved at Glossop North End. A couple of wins in the early rounds could mean a couple of thousand pounds for the club, and when GNE were in dire straights, this was certainly welcome. I remember only too well the gloom around the place when there was a Preliminary Round defeat to Ludlow Town, who had looked eminently beatable.
And it is that involvement with GNE that has allowed me, sneakily, to finally tick another box on the list of things I want to happen before I die.
My role has many facets, but handily two of them are assisting in the player registration forms and completing the team sheet before a game. So pre-season, I filled in my signing-on form - I am now possibly the oldest player registered with the Vodkat League - and then before our tie with Wigan Robin Park on Saturday,once the proper team had been entered onto the sheet, I added my name to the list. Teams are allowed seven subs in the FA Cup, but rarely pick more than five, extraordinarily six, so there I was - in substitute number seven heaven.
I didn't tell anyone, and I didn't put myself on the printed list for the clubhouse window. But I did keep the clubs copy of the official teamsheet, and this will be going in a frame and kept safely in my possession as proof on my involvement in what in truth was an ordinary game, but marks a special moment personally in my continuing love affair with the competition.
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