I am and have been a sports fanatic since I was the age of 9 years old. Football was and has always been my No1 choice, mainly because I realised I was so damn good at it….
But in terms of falling in love with the sport, I have to give credit to the World Cup of Mexico 1986 to me the best world cup I have seen so far.
After watching it (or even during) my love affair with the sport was cemented for good. The great goals, the great players, the great stories, the atmosphere and of course the Mexican wave… It was an easy sell.
My footballing ability allowed me to travel many places and play for many teams. Unfortunately, my attitude, lack of guidance, straight talking, inability to hold my tongue and raw childhood growing up in the streets of Hackney hindered my progress of advancing through the ranks. In what was in those days an unknown world of professional and semi-professional football….
With that being said, I did experience many highs and lows playing for teams such as QPR, Bishops Stortford, Hendon, Brimsdown, London, Hackney, Springfield Boys & St Michaels to name a few.
During my time playing for these teams, I learnt the professional and business side of football, I also came into contact with loads of people who were very knowledgeable in the game and who passed on a lot of wisdom to myself.
People such as coaching staff, experienced pro’s, chairmen, managers, even kit men and physio’s.
With my local club Springfield Boys, I experienced captaining the side to many 5 a side & 8 a side tournament wins. For a good period of time picking up trophies became the norm!
From left to right collecting trophies from the likes of Chris Waddle, Martin Blundell (Ex F1 Driver) Gary Lineker (that was the player of the year trophy). Simon Le bon & Ugo Ehiogu. Apart from football, I have received trophies in sports such as Athletics, Tennis, Short Tennis & Table Tennis oh and Bar football, although I think that is more classed as a game, anyway a trophy is a trophy!
As I said, winning became the norm and as captain I excelled leading my team and bringing home trophies from tournaments in places like Woking, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Bellingham, Barnsley and Bermondsey. This enabled my team to get something of a reputation and pictures in the newspapers became a semi regular occurrence
.
I won’t tell you where I am in each pic I will let you guess, but they were some talented teams. Below with Nigel Mansell Ex Formula 1 Champ, I assure you that is me with Nigel, and below that with former England cricketer Norman Cowans.
Sadly these are all things of the past, and now, since I can’t make the headlines in football the next best thing is the write them.
Although I have been involved in football for over two thirds of my life, I am relatively new to the journalism side. I completed a sports journalism course in 2011 hope to move on and progress in this side of the field. I have also completed my FA level 1 & 2 coaching badges and I’m looking to pursue my level 3 in the future.
My playing days has given me loads of experience and aside from football I have deep rooted knowledge and interests in sports like Boxing, Ultimate Fighting, Basketball, Tennis, American Football and Athletics.
The inspiration for my blog was due to me reading many other blogs and wanting more, as they left me feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Most blogs, as good as they were, to me all followed the same stereotypical format.
They were either funny, serious, or fact/stat based, and loads had so much going on I didn’t know where to start. My aim is the keep it simple (after all football is a simple game, which is why it is so popular) but be funny, serious and fact/stat based all at the same time…..Possible? I am not sure, but I will certainly give it a try!!!!!
