We Brought Our Boots - We Played!

By CCFC Sid And Others!
May 31 2005

The cliche that footballers are paid to do something we would pay to do was given another chance to be proven this end of season, and below is a selection of matchday memories from some of those that did!

Stewards & Turnstile Operators v Turnstile Operators & Stewards

Mr. CCFC Sid/CCFC Sid/CovSid (Delete as applicable!)

While the rest of those that played paid out either £100 or £146, the club rewarded the turnstile operators and stewards by charging them substantially less!! (Which went to a "charidy, mate"!).

Eighty players were listed to play, with four games lasting 20 minutes being the original plan. Then it became two games of 20 minutes each way, before finally being 45 minutes, and only one half!

After a seemingly endless wait in the Trophy Room (Where I was married some four years before!) we were led to the dressing room, where the kits were neatly laid out - I chose the shirt worn by Paul Telfer, so if anybody was to contrast and compare, I wouldn't have to much to live up to!

There was no Vierra v Keane shenanigans in the tunnel, with both sides desperate to just get out and get on! Thankfully, the foot/ankle injury that had plagued me for six months was miraculously gone....

Most people will probably say the Highfield Road pitch seemed massive, but I disagree. Maybe I'm far fitter than I give myself credit for, as running up and down for nearly every second of my 43 minutes proved no trouble at all! (Playing on a park pitch days before, where the width of the pitch was seemingly never-ending, probably helped!).

Like Wembley 1987, the whole thing seemed to last a matter of minutes, though I was given longer than most! The rolling substitutions meant players were taken off every few minutes, but I didn't need an oxygen tent, and didn't want to go! (So I ignored my usual left-side position, and moved to the right in the hope I wouldn't be spotted!).

My period of inactivity lasted a mere two minutes, as I refused to sit down, and stood by the manager for the night 'til he sent me back on - and there I stayed.

While my contribution was an assist to an assist before a goal, and one cracking shot (Modesty not intended!) superbly saved by the opposition keeper (Who I was later informed plays in non league football), my brother, in match No. 2, scored twice!

He was denied a possible hat-trick when a small pitch invasion made it 20-a-side, and virtually impossible to score! He was also denied after an impressive 40 yard run where he waltzed past a fair few players with ease!

My good friend Dave Coleman, playing for the opposition in game No. 1, scored the game's opening goal - and I'm sure most of the people in Swan Lane and beyond were aware of this! A fine effort, and a celebratory roar that could probably be heard in his home town some 10+ miles away.

Our equaliser came some halfway through the match, but, with the game heading for a draw, a change of keeper was to be our undoing, as two fairly routine catches were allowed to drop over the line, as if Fabien Debec had come back!

Having finished a well contested match, had the obligatory photographs taken (Pictures not yet supplied!), we headed back to the changing rooms, where the second set of players were waiting for us to remove the sweaty kits for them to put on. Yeuk!

I look forward to the end of next season, when I hope the club will be doing the same again for their hard working matchday staff!

Serck Controls v CovCityFC

Living The Dream - Chris Of Cov

Every week you stand on the terrace and watch those players running about on the hallowed turf of Highfield Road you always think to yourself: "I could do better than him, he's lazy, he does not run around enough", but you know there is never a chance you could get to try it until one day that dream does comes true .... "Bring Your Boots You're Playing!" The fans have a chance to try and play the way they do in their dreams, run around, score a goal, all on the pitch for real.

The build up to the day was quite subdued - I did not want to get over excited but found myself checking the calendar and counting down the days through to the hours before kick off! The night before could I get to sleep? I had to have a couple of beers to help settle the nerves I was feeling and then finally the big day had arrived!

7am I was awake, 6 hours until kick off. I have time for a shower a spot of breakie, 15 cups of coffee, check my bag 7:30, check my bag, 7:35, check my bag - this went on for an hour!! Anyway after pretty much doing nothing other than clock watching, 11am arrived. Time I got dressed pulled on my suit, got my lift to HR.

I sat down and looked around, seeing everyone else was as nervous as I was, so off I went for a walk out onto the Main Stand to take up in some of the pre-match atmosphere, until somebody came out and told me my daughter was crying because she thought I had left her! So back inside we waited, and waited, and waited - it seemed like hours before some old guy come along to show us the way to Amarillo! I mean changing rooms.

We all got changed into our kit and were ready to go. After a few minutes we made our way out of the dressing room, through the tunnel, and onto the pitch up to the terrace goal, and had a little warm up.

How big are those goals? The post, the crossbar - they’re fatter than me!!

The nerves seemed to be going away with each kick, and then when we were called over for the photo shoot - then the nerves came back! Back to the changing room waiting for the bell to go - it did and we were on our way out for real, running out onto the HR pitch and hearing your name being called out is amazing!

I don’t remember much of the game because it went so fast but I do remember running a few lengths and thinking I never ran this much doing the Coventry fun run last year! That pitch is huge! (To all CCFC players: I now know why you never run for 90 minutes).

Dicky Shaw has played for city for 10 years, and never scored at HR! I played once for 1 hour and achieved my dream! Don’t ask how the ball found it’s way wide to Mark, because I don’t know! I just remember him playing the perfect ball into the box and I ran towards it and smashed my header towards the left hand side of the goal - why is it everything goes in slow motion?! I think my Nan could have ran from her house and cleared the ball away it seemed to go that slow and then the net moved, I didn’t know what to do, I was lost, scared, felt just how my daughter must have only a short while ago and then heard the crowd cheer and my team mates cheering and then my name on the tannoy system again.

The time just flew by after that, and although the score line was not what we had hoped for it was not the end of the world either. The final whistle went soon after, and a short while later we went back to the changing room.

Now this is not something you would do on a normal day, nor would it ever be as funny as it was but getting back to the changing rooms and seeing that bath full of water still fully clothed diving right in and then sharing the bath with 8 of your team mates drinking Champagne and singing songs (One could not join us as she was female? And the other was too scared because he never had a change of pants? But he went in, in the end after a little persuasion well more of a kick in, dragged and thrown in!!).

And that was it - time for the bar!! Writing this and thinking back, I think I done myself proud. In one day I had played at Highfield Road, scored at Highfield Road, and even claimed `Covsupport', `LAST', and `Cov City Til I Die!'s' `CovCityFC.com’s Man of the Match'!

Thanks!

This was no longer living the dream - it was much much better!

[More to follow soon]