5
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 the Herald, 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 the Hamcott 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.’
But it’s hard to say if we do or not. Although it ends in a three-one win, it’s still something of an anticlimax. Hamcott will finish, as they always do, around the middle of the table, but as we’re no longer invested in their future, that’s not a reason to celebrate. And I don’t think anyone can pretend there isn’t still a slight sting of disappointment that this is the last Hamcott game we’ll ever go to, no matter how excited we are about the emergence of Crawford United.
The mood is jubilant back at The Fox, though. For those who have already declared their interest in Crawford– namely Barbour and his crew– today was more about closure than anything else, saying goodbye to an era long enjoyed but accepting that all good things come to an end. Anyone who still hasn’t heard about the new club yet is quickly brought up to speed. By closing time, it’s the only thing being talked about.
A quick look at my phone tells me Crawford’s Instagram followers have crept up to just over three hundred, which is yet another reason to celebrate. If we can promise to bring a couple of hundred supporters to each home game, we’re far more likely to secure a good ground-share deal.
‘Helen’s piece is already up on the Herald website,’ I tell Dad, scrolling through it and having a quick read. ‘It looks like she spoke to someone at Hamcott Park about us after she spoke to you.’
‘Go on,’ he says.
‘She asked if they’re concerned about losing fans to Crawford United and their publicity guy, Chris Parker, said, “We have no reason to feel threatened by Mike Crawford’s plans. Even if he does manage to find some decent players and get this club off the ground, it’s not like any of our loyal supporters are about to drop Hamcott Park to start watching amateur matches in the Combined Counties League.
‘“I wish Crawford luck, but with all due respect, it’s hard enough running a club when you’re as established as Hamcott Park. It’s not something you can just decide to do one day and make happen the next. So no, we don’t see this changing anything for Hamcott Park. What happens eight leagues below us is of no consequence to the future of our club.”’
‘Arrogant prick,’ Dad mutters.
‘Dad!’
‘Sorry, love. I mean he might be right, but when you look at what’s going on right here, right now, the excitement, the camaraderie...’
‘The overflowing box of Hamcott football shirts and scarves,’ I add, pointing to the collection Olly has started with a view to donating it to a charity.
‘I hope Chris Parker ends up eating his words,’ Dad says defiantly.
There are a couple of other messages on my phone that need my attention. Phoebs has accused me of ghosting her now we’re not seeing each other in lectures any more and, in fairness, I did promise we’d get together for regular study days but have yet to organise anything. I know she won’t really be annoyed– that’s not the way she is– so I suggest meeting up tomorrow daytime. And she replies straight away, saying she’ll pop round at lunchtime.
It means not seeing Greg until the evening, which he might not be too impressed about– he proposed meeting for brunch and going on from there in his last message to me– but he knows I need to revise and I’ll get more done with Phoebs than if I study round his, because she won’t distract me with conversations about our travels.
It occurs to me then that I’m subconsciously putting off talking to him, because I know, having had more time to think about it this week, that my heart is more invested in Crawford United than our summer plans. I know I want to give its creation my best shot and I can’t do that if I’m hundreds of miles away drinking cappuccinos in a sunny plaza in Italy.
I sigh as I accept, finally, that I no longer seem to be on the same page as Greg. If we ever were, that is. If I really delve into it, Greg has never had the slightest interest in the existence of a new football club– he’s that guy who you couldn’t even pay to watch Top Goals. And I think he’d probably be happier with a girlfriend who isn’t unavailable every other Saturday.
So perhaps the time has come for us to have an honest chat about our future. Because although I think he’s an amazing guy and we get on brilliantly, the truth is, I’m not in love with him. And I’m not sure he’d say he was in love with me either. We do like each other of course– we wouldn’t have spent so much time together if we didn’t– but I’d be willing to bet I’m not the only one who’s wondered if we might drift apart once we no longer have university bonding us together.
When I text him to apologise for not getting back to him sooner and request that we meet a little later in the day, he replies with an apology of his own and says he’s decided to head down to see his parents for the rest of the week, so could we postpone until Friday.
‘Absolutely,’ I reply, with a light sense of relief. Then I tell him– and it’s still partly true– that I look forward to seeing him then.