I am making good time, my bag is packed with all the essential items. I put it all in the car and am about to hit the motorway when the traffic light turns red. I take off my glasses and clean them on my t-shirt. Shit. I attempt a u-turn and succeed, I exceed the speed limit all the way home. My car lies abandoned outside the house as I run inside and install the contact lens, I have never fitted one quicker. I reverse into the driveway and set off along the road I had travelled only ten minutes earlier. I am now making bad time, I am late. I arrive, the coach has not yet turned up. All is well.
The mood amongst the players is relaxed and confident. The coach turns up and we place our gear in the hold. The hold door is mechanised and slides up as opposed to the normal rotating doors. The top half of the coach seats is upholstered in leather, all the seats recline, they all have seat belts. It is a nice coach. I sit two rows behind the toilet, roughly half way down. A lineman sits next to me. The seats all seem to have foot rests, built into the chair in front. We are meant to depart at nine o'clock but the backroom staffer who holds the club roster does not turn up due to health issues. A senior backroom staffer summons him to the coach, perhaps using harsh language. We set off from the ground at about nine fourty-five.
On the way up we watch 'The Replacements', it has Keanu Reaves in. It isn't very good. We stop at a service station but are not allowed to bring hot food onto the coach on account of the nice seats, this is fair enough. I have brought my own pasta concoction to consume but I purchase some chocolate bars from the shop anyway. We leave the service station and footage from last years game is played. It is the home fixture, I see myself milling around on the sideline, I hope to play a more active role this year.
We arrive at what appears to be the ground, the coach comes to a halt. We crawl past the ground on a single track road, having to take several tight corners, forcing several cars to reverse to passing points. We assume the coach driver is searching for a place to turn around, he never does. We drive into a country park with a golf course and there is a smaller set of pitches. This is our venue. We have arrived an hour before kickoff.
Everyone bundles off the coach, grabs their kit and heads to the locker-rooms. They are small and cramped. I get changed in the shower part and head out to the pitch. New game-shirts are laid out on the sideline and I look for my number, I can't see it immediately. We are told to put on our old game-shirts for the warmup. The stretches are hurried and the receiver core runs 3 routes each before it is game time. I drop two of my passes, one is a bad throw and the other is mostly my fault, it is not a good start to the day. I have asked a starting receiver if I can have his place on the punt team in the second half, he agrees. I am happy that I will get on the pitch at least a couple of times.
I get shouted onto the pitch for the last punt of the first half, I get bumped by a guy on the line and a second fellow hits me five yards from the line, I think I gave as good as I got. The punt went out of bounds. Defence tell me they liked my 'jackie chan' moves and I am puzzled, apparently I kicked one of the guys in the bollocks. I don't recall doing that. During half time, I am pulled of the punt team so that a starting corner-back who has been benched for this game can get some game-time, so he doesn't lose interest. I am angry. I don't get on the pitch again. The lead is too slender for an extended period of garbage-time and as the fifth-string receiver, that is what I need.
We win and the defense gets another shutout. It is good for the team. We are told to get changed quickly so we can depart quickly. We do and get on the coach, we are told there is food laid on upstairs. It is some sort of meat pie and baked beans, surprisingly tasty. I have a bottle of cider too. We get back on the coach and begin to head south again. We stop at a supermarket and some players are sent on a beer raid. I have a bottle of Coors-Light and two bottles of Bud early into the journey, I stop after that as I am driving home. Batman Begins is chosen as the movie for the way home, the screen is too small and it is too complex a movie for a coach trip. I eat my pasta and read my book instead. I try and fall asleep but I cannot. When Batman has concluded, a football DVD is put on, something by NFL films concerning the hall of fame. I watch the landscape through the window. It turns from a visible scene to a silhouette against the dark-blue sky, eventually it disappears altogether. I cannot read the road signs - the headlights on the bus are too far away, the headlights of pursuing vehicles are not close enough. Sometimes we pull out to the right to pass a slower vehicle, the orange blink of the indicators is followed by a flash of light from the overtaken vehicle, allowing us to pull back into the left hand lane.
We arrive back at the club at around twenty to midnight. I grab my gear from the coach and head home. The roads are quiet. The other cars on the driveway are parked in such a way as to make it awkward to reverse into the parking space, I manage though. I dump my kit in the hallway and go to bed.
