How were we even going to pull this off?
It was like something out of a movie like The Hangover. What had I got myself into…..
Me and Jumbo (yes, the Pele hater) hadn’t even managed to organise a 5-a-side game. Yeah 5 people. How were we going to cajole several people into this pipe dream.
And so it began…….I guess you could say it was the start of a love affair. My failed dreams of meeting and romancing Odeya Rush were firmly parked. Hmm Odeya, she even has a great footballing name. Nuff Said!
I do digress. We rallied up a small committee to try to get the ball rolling on this project.
The first light bulb moment!
How could we make this tournament more inclusive…….something that everyone could take part in. It says a lot about my previous perceptions of football that I had always planned this to be a men’s battle.
Problem solved…….let’s get the women down for this.
SIDE NOTE: Women & Football. As alluded to in an earlier post, one of the core goals of FC7 is to promote the womens' game as much as we can. More about this later in the blog.
HR were brilliant, they did great and the plan for the event was to take place one afternoon in summer. Everyone would be welcome to spectate, making this a real celebration.
I’ll be focussing on some of the soccer logistics; the things that we ultimately took away from the end result. The things I’d be putting away in my locker for later.
First on the agenda, was rallying the troops. We knew we needed men and women. But how many would sign up. Knocked up a quick online request form and pinged it out. Working my way up and down the floors, smoke breaks and the odd drink up I performed the hard sale. Arthur Daley would have been proud of me (google it kids).
People were really enthusiastic about the event
Soon, as I anxiously mouse clicked the request form results, I was amazed how many people had signed up. We had going up for 50 people. We have less than 80 people in our office (I think, probably find out we have 500, which will burst my bubble).
If you read my previous articles, you would know first-hand, how I was highly doubtful, of these 50 characters actually following through. Still, it was a good number, and I began to quietly feel somewhat more confident in my ability to “potentially” pull this off.
Funnily enough we discovered a rentable pitch literally across the road from our office. I have no clue how we missed that. It wasn’t the best, we sneaked out in the afternoon, got lost but ultimately did a professional reccy on the pitch that Alan Sugar would have been proud of.
It was 2G (sand based Astroturf) but it more than suited our needs.
SIDE NOTE: Another joker at work called Frodo (we will do some kind of cheap Marvel origins story for him, so don’t worry, you’ll find out exactly why this fool is called that) started an argument with me in the kitchens about the difference between a 2G and 3G pitch.Like a cheaply bought magician at a kid’s birthday party, he tried to pull all kinds of facts from up his poorly fitted sleeves to prove his point. Needless to say, his Sports Science Degree didn’t help him at all…….AT ALL, as I slapped him down at every corner. We’ll speak about the Hobbit character later. In fact, I’ll do a post about the difference between 2G, 3G and the dream of 4G. It should dovetail nicely with another post Sevy’s sorting out ‘bout footy boots (AG, FG etc).
We ordered all the gear we needed (football stuff that is, there’s always one tsk). Bibs, ref’s whistle and cards for little more than comedy value. Funnily enough……..If this tournament was going to fail…..it would have been because I had forgot to order footballs…….which very nearly happened.
One more push to sign up any stragglers, and we were all set. It’d taken only a few weeks to organise and setup. But we had done this! An event I had hoped would be a apt memorial for our colleague. A chance to finally set that game up, the game that Luca had been asking about…….that we never got round to organising.
Check out Part 2 for the lowdown on the actual event……..Did it fall flat…….or were we pumped for success……find out later!
All the jokes aside. Life really is too short people
Don’t put off till tomorrow, what you can do today.
If you like what you do today. You can do it again tomorrow.
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