Living vicariously

I wanted to be a professional footballer.  As a teenager, I poured my heart and soul into the sport, loving (almost) every minute of it and dreamt of representing my country and playing Premier League football.

Six days a week were spent training or playing, with the pre-game Friday the only day that didn’t see me in a pair of boots or trainers.  Admittedly, those Friday nights would often find me in Wellington’s Bond Street Inn with my mates, not necessarily the perfect preparation for a match, but such was my youth and fitness that I managed to ride through the perils.  Those nights are perhaps an indication of why I didn’t quite make it in the game, but nevertheless, it was a dream I harboured.

Not realising your dreams, or at least acknowledging the fact, can sometimes be a difficult experience; often for someone else.  On the 26 May 1999, Manchester United recorded their historic treble of winning the Champions League, Premier League and the FA Cup in the same season.  That same day, a much bigger event in my life occurred, the arrival of one James John Brown.  3lb 6oz of fighting little man who I thought was so keen to catch the football that he arrived six weeks early.  I determined there and then, that my ambition to be a footballing legend would transfer to the tiny bundle in my arms, who I would support, cajole and encourage into a future England team.

Fast forward 15 years and we are on the cusp of the World Cup, an event I desperately wanted to attend, not as a spectator, but as a player (though I’m still clinging to the dream of visiting the World Cup as the former).  The TV and radio are tuned to broadcast the games, the matches I can’t see live are set to record and there’s a bottle or two of Brahma in the fridge as my tilt towards being in Brazil.  I’m savouring the build-up, entering match predictions and a fantasy league team on SuperBru, placing my outside bet on the Belgians at Ladbrokes and listening to the experts opine.  On one such programme airing on the BBC’s 5Live last Friday, a number of pundits named their world eleven, a team comprising the best players that history has delivered us.  Amongst others, names such as Pele, Beckenbauer, Maradonna, Zoff, Matteus and Zico were pencilled onto the team sheet, conjuring some of the most magical moments in football, as I recalled the feats of some of these players.

At the time, Jamie and I were heading to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford to listen to an illuminating talk by Prof. Mark McCaughrean on the work of the European Space Agency and I asked Jamie who he’d have in his world eleven.  What transpired is proof of a number of things: that we are each our own; that we should form only our ambitions; and that my son has not the remotest bit of interest in the world of football.  For 20 minutes we laboured at establishing a team, me providing what I considered to be the most obvious of hints, but which in hindsight, only someone with an interest in the game would be able to get, albeit, when it came to Walkers Crisps, we got to Gary Linekar relatively easily, although Jamie did think he was a cricketer. 

We soon dispensed with naming players to their preferred position or even the possibility of filling a bench, we were like a pub team on a Sunday scrubbing around to find enough fellas to fill 22 boots.  Even David Beckham didn’t manage to raise a mention, although admittedly I failed to think of him myself and provide Jamie a clue like “Who is Posh Spice’s husband?”

Which leads me to my point.  Despite his utter lack of interest in football and his unwillingness to share my passion for the game and fulfil my dreams, I am immensely proud of my son.  One day, he may be a brilliant scientist, mathematician or pilot (or something as yet still to be determined).  Whilst I marvelled at Professor McCaughrean as he outlined the staggeringly clever maths and physics that go into landing an explorer on a comet, Jamie took it in his stride, accepting it simply as a component part of the science that goes into space exploration.  He is quite beyond my level of understanding in matters of the Universe and will never be able to turn to me for help with his homework; not that he needs my assistance; his independence, diligence and skills in the maths and science disciplines are more than enough to see him through, although he does have the physicists disdain for what he considers to be biological nonsense.

He will inevitably follow his path in the world and my role, I now realise, is not to lead him down a route that I would follow, but rather be there to support him along the road, doing what I can to make it as smooth a ride as possible.

It is right to have dreams for our children, but they shouldn’t be what we had as our own.  The dream should be that they are happy and free to pursue their dreams.  One should dream too, that through hard work, endeavour and if it takes it, luck, they achieve them.  That is a dream worthy of any parent. 

Of course, all that said, Jamie realising those dreams may not help to diminish the pain I felt when, in all seriousness, he asked me, “Dad, what is the point of football?”