It’s a cold Tuesday night before match day, and the average player would be settling down for a cup of tea ready for their fix of EastEnders – but not the captain of a UEL football side.
If the stress of course deadlines, cooking dinner and making sure your own kit is clean wasn’t enough, you now have 14 players, 16 match kits, water bottles and a team sheet to worry about.
You now have to work very closely with your manager ensuring 14 highly intelligent university students are available to give their all for UEL on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.
Yes, this is where a match day begins for a UEL captain and is the start of very long, draining but exhilarating 24 hours that can leave you with every emotion thinkable.
All part of the fun
The first worry begins when your top goal scorer reveals he is unable to play and leaves you wondering if you’ll have to play your centre back upfront. However, this is all part of the fun.
After hours of worrying about whether you have a squad of players, there then come the travel arrangements. For home games this isn’t a worry. Message the players: “12:30 meet, Hackney marshes, don’t be late!”
I can assure you, an away day is much more complex than that. Finding the venue is one thing, getting 14 players there is another. Then comes the kit, smelling freshly of fabric conditioner after a wash from the week before, your job of assuring that 16 shirts, 16 shorts and 16 pairs of socks get to the game, is nowhere near as stressful as making sure they return back after the game.
From the way I’m writing, you might be wondering why I haven’t passed on this responsibility but, when you know that for 90 minutes you can lead your side to three points and a potential league title at the end of the year. It’s one of the best things you will take away from university, as well as a university degree of course.
So, you’ve got your players and kit sorted and you’ve arrived at the ground after an hour-long journey on the Jubilee Line. The upcoming game has only been briefly discussed as your teammates recap on last night’s soaps instead.
Game we love
Meanwhile, the captain is speaking quietly about the team for today’s game with the manager. This of course, is never an easy process as every single player has given up their spare time to play the game we all love.
Upon entering a small damp changing room, ‘match day mode’ fully kicks in and all the pre-match worries are forgotten. It time to take control of the warm up to prepare your players mentally and physically for battle.
And from there, it seems that all the pre-match anxiety can be forgotten and finally the game itself can be recognised. As kick off approaches, I feel it’s important to huddle around and give one more ‘heroic’ speech.
“Lads, first 10 minutes, keep it tight, win your personal battles, and keep things simple.”
Commitment
It’s important to remind the players what the game means, but there’s also needs to be a sense of optimism and excitement to play for UEL. Something that every captain wants to get across to his fellow teammates. Then comes the game, 90 minutes of tough tackling, passion, commitment, excitement and most importantly plenty of goals for UEL, playing in -1 temperatures on a muddy wet pitch.
This is what the games all about. As captain, the feeling of winning is matched by your teammates but despite the win, draw or loss, this isn’t where the captain’s responsibility ends.
It’s now time to make sure the team sheet is filled out, introduced just this year. Who would have known an A4 piece of paper could be so crucial to a game of football. Without this form filled out, there is a danger that the result could be voided.
Of course, there is no greater feeling in football than winning, and if a failure to fill in this sheet is the reason the win is taken away from UEL, it would be awful for everyone associated to the club, and the blame would lie with the captain.
This leads to the journey home and the final task is making sure that all the kit and the team sheet makes it back to the sports office. The three points have been secured and now it’s finally time for the captain to relax until next week’s game, Canterbury away and the stress cycle starts once again.
It’s very easy to make the assumption that being captain of a UEL Football team starts in the warm up and ends at full time. I hope by the end of this you’ve realised there’s much more to it than just winning the coin toss!
