Tag Archives: Football

The Dorky Girlfriend

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Last week marked the first time this year that I watched Jock play football in his Thursday night 8-a-side team. Last year, they won the championship and I was a proud, if not slightly dorky, girlfriend, taking pictures and standing in the rain.

Last week was a bit like last year. It was cold, I shivered but I stayed. The sun was so blinding that half the players couldn’t see the ball flying in their faces. I ducked numerous times even though what I thought was the ball coming towards me was actually its shadow. The manager stood to the side, smoking his cigarettes and calling out orders to the team.

It must be a bit like a mother feels watching her child play – not that I’m comparing him to my child, because that would just be – in every way – wrong. It’s just that I love watching the man of my life doing what he loves best – and that’s out on the field with his studs (cleats), amongst his friends, tackling the ball, getting scraped up and playing football.

Perhaps its in my genes.

My mother never missed one of my games. Not one, and she was one of the rare ones. Softball in the Spring and Summer, Soccer in the Fall and Basketball in the Winter – not to mention the silly musicals I was in. I was non-stop, and she was always there. Surprisingly, not many other mothers were – something that always baffled her and me.

Perhaps that’s why I take such pride in watching Jock.

I have to admit, a part of me feels slightly embarrassed that I try to go to every game – as if I shouldn’t be so thrilled to watch him, as if I should still play hard to get, as if I need to pretend that I don’t care as much. My embarrassment I find infuriating – surely we should enjoy every moment we have with our loved ones. But, I pick up on a slightly annoyed feeling that what I’m doing isn’t cool.

Where does that come from?

I’m the only girlfriend who sits there, and maybe its that – sitting alone on the field…

But I realize we won’t be living in this country much longer and he won’t be playing with the boys he’s been playing with for the past twelve years….well, maybe, ever again. I do love it.

This year is easier than last year. At least the boys are used to the random girl stalking her boyfriend on the edge of the field, taking pictures and grinning widely. I’m sure no one else looks at me the way I think they might, but I can’t help but wonder…is it those high school days trying to be cool coming back to haunt?

Anyway, I guess I’m just one of those girls who is unable to feign disinterest. I never learned that trick. I’m always too interested.

Do you feel like its best not to show too much interest in your man? If you do, is that a fear that if you show too much interest, they lose interest?

Or do you try to take in every moment?

Just thinking…

My First Old Trafford Experience

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Tick that one off the list.

I went to Manchester United’s Football Club yesterday – Old Trafford. It was my first time, and it was A-MAZ-ING. Loved it. Yup. Loved it. L-O-V-E. Got it?

Although, when the fans started shouting over and over again – LOVE UNITED, HATE THE GLAZERS….I shrank a bit. The Glazers are the American owners…I kept my accent at a minimum. I couldn’t help but feel a bit personally embarrassed for my fellow countryman. But, then I got over it and into the game.

Going to the nation’s largest Premier League football stadium, and still feeling like I was an integral part of something meant something. It meant I wasn’t just a seat in a stadium…which is what the protesters wearing the green and yellow scarves were trying to say. They were trying to say to the American Glazer family, who own the football club, that it is the fans and the city that make this football club what it is – it’s not a franchise, as the Glazer’s mistakenly said during a conference about  the club, and you can’t expect to get the football club into £700 million debt without a fight from the fans. You can’t raise ticket prices so high that people who have lived in the city for decades and been season ticket holders just as long, can no longer afford to go. This isn’t America, they’re trying to say.

It also shows to me the advantages of living in a smaller country can do. It makes you feel like you are actually a part of a community. This is the nation’s largest Premier League football stadium (thank you Sam for correcting me – Wembley is the largest football stadium at 90,000), and it only holds 76,000 people. My college football stadium at USC held 93,000 seats, and that’s college! I was three rows from the field, and there was Wayne Rooney, the white Pele, literally 30 feet from me. Amazing. Although, as Jock pointed out to me, the Super Bowl stadium in Miami holds the same amount of people – so perhaps it’s the fact that you’re so close to the field. In America, they put the seats far back, so even the best seats in the house are far away.

It makes you feel less lost being in a smaller country. It makes me realize why it’s so easy in America to feel lost, like just a number and searching for your place in the enormous country. It makes me understand why there are so many Americans buying self-help books, going to enlightenment seminars, and healing conferences. It also shows me how the English can scoff so easily at our seemingly pathetic attempts at “finding ourselves.” But it’s no wonder…if you went to a high school with 5,000 other people, you’d probably feel a little lost as well. The English have a built-in community. It’s not hard to feel recognized here…the numbers themselves are on your side. But it’s more than that, they build things out of a need for something. They don’t (or should I say didn’t) build things for purely financial reasons, for capitalism…football teams here came out of a community of people who wanted to get together and kick a ball around. (Click here for Man Utd’s history. Of course, now people would argue that the footballers make so much money that they only play for the money, but I disagree…I think most of them would still play even if they got paid a fraction of what they earn now.) But, the history alone builds soul (although I’m sure the English wouldn’t go so far as to use the word soul, but I will because I’m a cheese dick American.)

I think I may have understood before how, culturally, it’s easy for Americans to be in constant search of their identity (afterall, we have the biggest melange of cultures possibly known to man, without one truly of our own), but I don’t think I had ever really thought of it in terms of events and numbers. Yes, the English have a much stronger sense of identity because their culture goes back hundreds of years, and therefore is more easily embedded in their sense of self, but when you go to a sporting event and you can honestly say that you experienced it rather than just simply being a spectator…that says something else. This may sound like – DUH! to others, but to me, it’s a truly AH HA moment.

I felt very American on more than one occasion last night, but the moment when I felt the most American was when I was leaving the stadium. One of the security guards looked at me, laughed and said “I’d recognize those earrings anywhere, hey!” I laughed out of politeness, not really sure what he was going on about, and continued on my way. Then he said, “Hey, Bette!” as if that would help me comprehend his joke. I just continued laughing and moving away from the strange man in the neon yellow vest. Jock looked at me and said, “You have no clue what he was talking about, did you?” “Not really,” I responded,  “I assumed he meant Bette Midler or something?” He replied, “No, he was comparing you and your earrings to Bet Gilroy from Coronation Street.” I had these big hoop earrings in.

I’m still not entirely sure what the connection is, but I’m glad he got a good chuckle out of it. Besides, these are people who have never heard of Full House, Family Matters or Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? (A friend of mine, Katie, informed me of this when she found out her English fiance had never heard of these shows.)

So, what is the moral of the story?

What good is a small country when you can’t watch the hits that started the careers of the Olsen Twins?

And, if you want to watch my American cheese-dick video that I made, see below!

The Only Constant in Life is Change

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The last two weeks have been eye-opening.

I was beginning to get a bit unhappy and negative about not having a job, not helping to earn money in the house, and I started thinking I shouldn’t really be here in Bristol.  I missed the USA like I never thought I would, and the days were boring me to no end.  Even though I have this book I’m writing – I realized I was writing it purely out of habit rather than passion. The book club has been great, but that only happens once a month and I needed more than that.

I knew I had to either change my attitude or do something about it.  The change started happening last week after Jock and I attended a Theatre Bristol meeting.  It was the first time I had stepped into a theatre in about eight months, and as soon as I stepped in, I inhaled deeply.  There is nothing like the smell of an empty theatre – the mustiness, the sweat, the emotions all in the air from the last performance hanging there, not heavy, but eager and waiting for the next moment to be alive and have an audience cast their eyes on the experience that only live theatre can provide.

Over a hundred people showed up to the meeting to just discuss what was happening in the theatre world – that’s it.  They all met to have a chat.

After the meeting, I wrote to the leaders of the evening, and this is part of what I said:

“I attended last night’s meeting and was blown away by the openness and clarity imbued in the format from which you decided to lead the discussions.  Thank you for holding such a meeting.  Coming from Los Angeles and New York, I have never known such a fully all-encompassing theatre get-together to exist – well, except within the unions and I would hardly call those meetings warm or open.”

That night stirred something in me.  It wasn’t a desire to run back to the stage and it wasn’t a change in mind about leaving acting behind.  It was my acceptance of me as an artist.  I would never be able to hide from the fact that that’s who I am and I need stimulation unlike non-artists. Even just being around the other actors and writers fed that desire to create.

What am I doing differently now?

1.  I am reading several inspiring books, including New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
2.  I wake up every morning about an hour earlier than I was before to meditate and put into focus what I want from the day.
3. I journal for fun every night.
4. I am entering a writing contest a week so I can become a published author before my book is finished.
5. I am researching grants for writers in order to bring in some money to help me finish my book.
6. Yoga
7. Being conscious of the thoughts I let into my mind – boy, that ego is a tricky character!
8. Applying for an internship once a week in the theatre doing anything (that was part of the email I wrote to Theatre Bristol).
9. I sit up straight when I write instead of slumping – it makes a difference.

10. And my favorite task I just finished – entering the Ladies Who… Club into a contest being held by Glamour Magazine! You can see my entry I submitted here as a PDF or below (and notice my English spellings):Ladies WhoP.S. Our book for this month is The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.

I can’t believe what a difference all these little changes make.  I found that, although running and writing were great ways to keep busy, I need a well balanced and well rounded life of activities.

And, how lucky am I have to have this opportunity?  The other part of me thinks – you were crazy to not take advantage of all this free time! This is the time in my life when I can dedicate myself to ANYTHING I want to do.  When else will I be able to have this time? (Hopefully from now on if I’m careful).  Like Jock said, this is my time to be the best I can be.

Jock and I are better than ever too – even if my cheeriness is very anti-English (not really!).

On another note, Jock and his football (aka soccer) team won their championship this weekend – I was a proud girlfriend who stood in the rain and cold for four whole hours with her pom poms and skirt (nope, again, not really!) while they played game after game and won. Please mind the blinding uniforms!

football championstop goal scorers

Saving Money…or Not

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This weekend our one and only goal was to stay in and save money seeing as Jocko got his first pay packet April 24th, and we had went all out the weekend before. We failed that goal when his mate called him to let him know he had two extra tickets to see the FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley Stadium in London: Manchester United vs. Everton. Jock, being the most devoted football fan I’ve ever met (though I’m sure it’s not that uncommon in this country), couldn’t pass them up. Plus, we rationalized that we had eaten in every day last week, and spent Friday and Saturday night without spending a dime.

I could get a day out in London with my new friend Gemma, and he could go with her boyfriend to the game, then we could spend the night at their place thus saving the money for a hotel room. Now that we have a car, it’s really easy to jet on up to London two hours away. So, first thing Sunday morning we headed to Londontown. It started off really hazy and grey in the 40’s Fahrenheit, but as we got closer, the sun started burning off the clouds. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I don’t think Gemma and I stopped talking the entire day.

We all had breakfast together in the morning at a cute little cafe around the corner from their apartment in Putney, South London. We climbed on the tube, and let them continue on their way to Wembley. It was Shakespeare’s birthday and there were supposed to be lots of festivities around the Globe theatre on the South Bank of the Thames. When we got off, the merriment was overwhelming. There were clowns with balloons, paintings playing the violin, dragons bicycling in place, and Charlie Chaplins drawing crowds. Most of the time we were so entrenched in conversation that we didn’t notice the street acts.

The arm moves and strums along to music

Painting Strumming Guitar

After I started having severe stomach pains from it being close to that time of month, we decided to walk towards a pharmacy. Seeing as we couldn’t find any pharmacies open, we stopped in a pub instead. That pub led to another, which led to one that I had found on my last trip to London with my friend Fink near Embankment Station. It’s underground and is made from what seems to be a sewer, with curved ceilings and a faint damp smell. But with the candles and the wine, it seems so romantic. Gemma and I had some bread and cheese and a couple of glasses of wine, and then made our way back nearer her home to finish watching the football game.

Man United lost, and we were very sad, especially after seeing the Everton fans shouting in the bar. I tried to shout back, but they remained steadfast in their team alliance. Gemma and I decided the best way to deal with our boyfriends inevitable foul moods when they returned was to drink more. So, drink more we did. Unfortunately, when the boyfriends returned to us, they were very sober, and not too upset at the result of the game. Apparently they knew it would happen when they saw the line up. Oh well, a good day in London it was, and ended with a nice Chinese take away.