Farewell

When I write a blog, it’s usually because I have random feelings and random thoughts. Tonight I have strong and sad feelings and strong and sad thoughts. My eyes are streaming as I type this, but if there’s one person who deserves a blog and a mention, it is Malcolm Patterson.

I met Mac almost six years ago. I started dating my wife six and a half years ago and I followed her to this amazing island of Prince Edward’s…if I am brutally honest I had never even heard of it prior to Hannah Jane. I worked for a consultancy company specialising in the betting industry. Meeting this special family and these special grandparents was tough enough as it was but I had major reservations about meeting the wife-to-be’s family as I undoubtedly had to explain my career path and gambling is hardly the easiest choice to explain…especially in North America. I went for the analysis and data in football point of view, and mentioned, if somewhat glossed over, the betting angle.

I rapidly learned that none of that really mattered. I wasn’t judged on what I did, I was being judged on who I was and am. I hope I didn’t disappoint. The reverse angle didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Malcolm and Nellie have always made me feel like their own….I cannot quite imagine what being one of their own actually feels like.

Malcolm passed away this evening, and all I can possibly explain or hint at is how sad I feel tonight. I am very much like my dad in this sense, and I take loss hard. Of all the aspects, characteristics, qualities and weaknesses that I get from my parents, this kind of emotion undoubtedly comes from my father. Dad takes things hard, and always has. That is far from saying my mum doesn’t….anybody who reads my blog knows exactly what I think of her. This particular side of me comes from my dad though. Most of the guys that will read this will no doubt want to rip me apart because of it, but you’ll know what it is about and it is one of the reasons why a. we are friends and b. you are reading this.

Two and a half years ago, Malcolm and Nellie came to Leeds for Christmas. HJ and I have a principle whereby one Xmas is spent in one country and one in the other, so we split time between both families. Mac and Nel came to Yorkshire at the grand old age of 84. I cannot quite describe what that meant to HJ and me. I had it in mind to propose to my girl, and their presence made it the perfect setting. After I gathered the courage to propose, we told our parents and then went into Malcolm and Nellie’s room. It was shortly before supper and they were fast asleep on the bed. We stirred them gently and broke the news, and their eyes lit up.

Fast forward a couple of years and tonight all I can picture is Mac and my girl rocking the dance floor in a Halifax bar. Their attendance at our wedding meant the absolute world to the pair of us. Just as the presence of my family from Yorkshire coming all the way to Nova Scotia did. Weddings are funny old days that bring out different emotions in different people. For HJ and I, we could not have wished for a better day than 4^th August, 2011, and that was in no small part due to the presence of Mac and Nel.

I have known Mac for six years. I cannot imagine how it would feel tonight having known him for 32 years…..or more….or less. I would not dream of downplaying any relationship that he had. What I can say is that knowing him for six years, six weeks, six days, six hours, six minutes…..you would quickly know this gem of a husband, this dad, this grandfather, this friend….and this grandfather-in-law.

My mum’s dad passed away when I was pretty young. I can recall the fifty pences and the boiled sweets that he used to give me when we visited. I can recall his large ears and him sitting in the armchair at Florence Mount. I wish I knew him better….and I wish I hadn’t inherited his ears. You can’t win ‘em all. My dad’s dad was Spanish, and I was older when he passed, but again, was never able to spend as much time as I would have liked with him as I saw him maybe once or twice a year if I was lucky. He had a sense of humour, much like my dad, and much like me. Small minds think alike, but we found it. I am blessed to have the family that I have, they are amazing. Mac was the perfect granddad, and I’m going to claim him, as I have done the last six years, as my grandfather. I can only wish to have had that kind of relationship, with that kind of gentleman, for my 32 years of existence.

Sat in the cottage a couple of weeks ago, the phone rang, and it was an organisation asking if Malcolm was still willing to volunteer his time to helping out those in need. He had put his name down some weeks earlier to help out. That was who he was, and what he did. If I was a betting man, I’ll say that there won’t be a better attended funeral in Montague, Charlottetown or PEI for years to come. You’ll be missed Mac, sorely missed and as much as I’m not a fan, I’ll raise a rye and ginger for you xo

When You Say Nothing At All

If you know me, then you have probably heard me talk or read something I have written about Mia. She is my six-year-old niece and is one of the most adorable people I know. Before she learned the art of speech, Mia was often seen biting, spitting, or throwing the biggest tantrum you would have witnessed. This all made sense if you knew her mum when she was a kid. Bratiness however transformed into adorability.  If you haven’t adopted one of my favourite words, this is the kind of transformation examples that you will see in the dictionary under the term bouncebackability. We wrote her off. Cute kid, but the biggest brat of all time and Super Nanny was needed. She learned how to speak and the frustration resided and being able to express herself vocally reduced the need to inflict physical and mental pain on those around.

She received her school report last week and I’ll take a quote from it.

“Mia is a popular member of the class and she has a close circle of special friends. She is also one of the most thoughtful and sensitive children I have ever had the pleasure to teach.”

How fortunate Mrs Bell never her met her four years or so ago.

My job in the betting industry taught me one thing. As passionate as I have always been about football, I have developed an ability to remove emotion out of certain equations or decisions and to try to evaluate things on their merits and not be swayed by any biases I may have. It is not easy. Maybe I am biased with Mia. Maybe every kid’s report was similar to that and Mrs Bell has five standard templates that she copies and pastes from one to the next.

Kids come out with pearls of wisdom all the time that usually crack you up. One of the joys of being a parent, uncle/auntie, grandparent etc. Mia has had her fair share and I have yet to meet a kid like her. Last week she told her mum that when Nanna passes away, she is going to move into her house so that she can be close to her. I have not managed to break it to her yet that Uncle Rob will be selling up and putting that cash on black in Vegas. I’m sure she will understand one day. I have however never come across a kid who thinks as deeply as her. I recall bursting into tears after sitting in silence for hours one evening when I was a kid and just mum and I were home. I begged her not to die and to live forever. Mum never made the promise but said she would be around for a long time. Mia is not as naïve as I clearly was, but she is already up to speed a certain realities of life that completely belie her age.

I have always been a deep thinker. I suspect that comes across in my blog and words, perhaps more so than in my personality, but that is tough for me to judge. I’ve always been attracted and have warmed to fellow deep thinkers. As I have gotten older, I find myself surrounded more and more by ‘thoughtful and sensitive’ people as my inbuilt filter system has weeded out many of those lacking those traits. I can only hope and try to reciprocate the thoughtfulness and sensitivity, and get the very most out of those relationships.

I have been thinking a lot recently about the same theme that Mia was referring to. She is on one end of the age scale, and there are folk I know and care about on the other end. None of this business gets easier, but like Mia, we try find ways to deal with something that is inevitable at some point. Who knows, maybe by the time I am old and Mia is grown up, there will be a live forever injection we can take. Although after somebody told me yesterday ‘what?! You’re only 32!?’ I’m not sure it is something I’ll be signing up for in any rush.

Mia is on to something however. No, moving in is not the answer or solution for me, and Uncle Rob’s share will go on black, rather than red due to my obvious distaste for that colour. It is the moments, the words, the gestures that imprint in our minds long afterwards. There is something hugely reassuring we can take from any key relationship in  our lives and that twenty years later, you know precisely what they would say, what they would do, what they would advise and what facial expression they would pull. I am not going to stop asking or seeking for any of the above – I’ll still talk to everybody and ask the questions, bits of advice. If I know you well, I just know what you’re going to say or what you think. It’s how I approach and deal with things in this complex world (read my head) that we live in.

Age and Beauty

When I was younger, I wondered whether older men and women viewed fellow 60/70 year-olds as sensationally hot and attractive, just as I viewed a 21-year-old hotty when I was around that age. Does the 70-year-old granny walk past the pub and all the old guys’ heads turn with a cheeky whistle or two? I like to think that I was a bright kid, but I was certainly prone to getting sucked into some ridiculous misconceptions. There were others. I used to think gravy came from graveyards and Vicks Vapor Rub was made by Vicars. It took some time to live those down too.

Age, growing up and getting old is a funny old thing. I spent two weeks in the UK in May, mainly in Leeds doing a coaching course. The early stages of the course are based around youth football. There are certainly important technical lessons that I learned, but the overriding factor for me were the social aspects of coaching, and how you should treat the players. My favourite coaches or teachers were the ones who created the most enjoyable working environment and that got the best out of me - I generally believe that to be the case regardless of whether you’re a 11-year-old kid chasing a ball around a park, or a 40-year-old office worker.

Spending time with my family over those two weeks was a pleasure as always. I get as much satisfaction from spending time with my ridiculously adorable 6-year-old niece Mia and feisty ‘destined-for-the-UFC' nephew Max, as I do with the older folks in the Leeds crew. Time ticks by but the people are the same. I noted another myth while at home when my Mum said that time goes by too fast – the days, weeks and months just fly by….and nothing gets done. Well Mum, time ticks by the same as it always did, there are still sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day. And more importantly, you fill your days, weeks and months constantly. It is far better than sitting at home all day counting the hours. The days go so much slower when you look at the clock, or have nothing to do. Sometimes when I wonder where the time has gone, I think about what I have achieved, places I have been, and people I have seen, and I realise that is where the time went.

During those two weeks in Leeds, the experiences we all have at different stages of our lives, and how we interact with people of different ages was on my mind in a combination of random thoughts. I have heard a few people say that your 30’s are the best years of your life. That may have just been somebody feeling sympathetic towards me when I hit the 30 mark. So, ever the analytical mind, I decided to take a look at the various decades of one’s life and the general characteristics and experiences that you go through to try work out which decade was actually the most enjoyable.

The Noughties

You spend a fair amount of this time having absolutely no idea what you should do, but you just get on with it. You don’t care what others think, you poo and pee all over and start to say things that make older people squirm….somehow you’re still loved and adored by all. You will never learn and absorb as much in a decade as you will in this one.

The Teens

You still have no idea what you should do, but you know what you do not want to do – and that is more or less anything your parents or teachers want you to do. You care what everybody else thinks, but you don’t want to show it or let people know that you have developed those things called feelings. Somewhere just before the middle of this decade you wake up one morning and realise the same or opposite sex are quite appealing after being in denial for years, but you have no real idea how to deal with that until later in the decade. The decade of ‘trial and error’.

The Twenties

The harsh reality of work has almost certainly kicked in and it is ‘find your way in life’ decade. You realise that having your own money to spend is amazing, but actually, with all the responsibility that goes with it and all the people wanting their share of it, you recognise that being a student was not so bad after all. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to travel, probably to put off the work issue, escape it for a while, or buy some time to work out what you actually want to do for a job. You don’t realise that most other people in life do not love their jobs and have just fallen into something. You just know that you don’t know what it is exactly that you want to do for the next 40 years. Retirement sounds like a distant dream.

The Thirties

The decade of the ‘ticking clock’. If marriage and kids have not happened yet, everybody in your family is likely to be wondering if you are gay or have the cojones to ask the question. There is a different pressure in this decade, and that realisation comes when you find yourself submersed by students in a bar one night, and realise the hotty in the corner has more chance of being your child than your lover. Once you realised that, you can relax, be confident in yourself and get on with enjoying life. You’ve got some great relationships, many of which will be keepers as you realise that if you are friends with people as this point of your life, it is because you want to be friends with them.

The Middle Ages

Another type of pressure in this decade, and that realisation comes when you find yourself submersed by students in a bar one night, and realise the hotty in the corner is your child and there is a smooth guy chatting to her, and he is bigger than you. You are however happier going to the old pub that does not have televisions or music for a good old chat rather than a dance. Everything becomes that fraction bit harder physically, but you are still as sharp mentally. The youngsters of today are keeping you young, if you cannot match them physically any more, you are darn sure you’ll imprint your wisdom on them. You still don’t really know what you want to be when you grow up, but you would like a career change or to work for yourself. You’re at the halfway mark of your working life which is a grim thought. The decade of ‘painful realisations’.

The Fickities

At this point you are counting the days to retirement and thinking about all those amazing trips that you would love to do….and you realise they are pretty similar dreams to those you had when you were a Teen, but children, work, mortgages always got in the way. There is still some time to go however work-wise, but ambitions are a fraction lower, and you are in survival mode in what is possibly the only real time in your life where you are wishing that time went faster. The decade of ‘The Final Countdown’….and if you are that old, you’ll know the song too.

The Sixties et al

All those thoughts and dreams that you have been weighing up in the last decade can now become a reality. Or can they? Income is possibly reduced and you do not have the earning power, and you are reluctant to spend as although you cannot take it with you, you do not want to run out. While you should in fact be selling your house, move into rented accommodation and blow all your savings in a methodical manner, you are thinking of legacy and what you can leave for the kids. The kids who are actually big bad adults themselves now – let them look after you a little now. You have worked for some forty years, and now you should be enjoying life. The decade of ‘Nike – Just Do It’.

The End (of the blog)

Random Awards 2010

It is usually this time of year that in various industries – sport, music, film - present annual awards to recognise the achievements of individuals in that year. It seems like a random thing to do and I would like to take the opportunity to recognise some friends of mine for outstanding achievements in 2010. I present to you…..the Random Awards 2010.

The ‘Best Emailer’ Award goes to Roob Lockhart. You may not know him, you won’t find him on Facebook nor in a Starbucks, but this gent has pure magic in his fingertips when it comes to comedy emails and never fails to put a grin on any face. Winning this award ruled him out of contention for the ‘Longest Running Thesis Saga in History’ and the ‘Negative Nelly’ awards.

The ‘Weight Losing Champion/Mr Ironman 2010’ Award goes to JP, my colleague at Uefa. Considering that this is something I have made a serious effort with this year, I cannot fail to be impressed with JP. He looks a totally different person and is in fabulous shape after losing kilo after kilo. Utmost respect JP.

The ‘Glue That Holds Group Together’ Award goes to everbody’s favourite Mexican Tacito Vazquez. JVM11 is not exactly unassuming or quiet, but in a certain way he is. He is the cornerstone of a solid group of friends – always in good form even when he is not in good form, always up for anything, and has quietly become the glue. JVM is a rock that every family or group of friends need, and the type that you notice when he is not there. Look out in 2011 for the Glue’s new website!

The ‘Most Exciting Holiday Countdown’ Award goes to Les. Nobody made you feel as excited about somebody else’s holiday as Les did this year as the Steeples hit Florida. Thousands tuned into FB every day to count the days down with Les, and Les didn’t disappoint his faithful by providing photos aplenty of what looked to be one of those classic family holidays that none of them, or us will forget.

The ‘Switzerland’s Got Talent and Cojones’ Award goes to my favourite former flatmate Erika Riedl. ER has taken up the scarifying sport of Skeleton and never ceases to amaze me with her dedication, passion and serious cojones. If anybody I know can succeed in something so random as Skeleton, it is Erika. She just missed out on the ‘F-Bomb’ World Record, narrowly being beaten by her previous bests in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005 when she learnt the word. Oh and she needs a sponsor!

The ‘Cool, Calm, Collected but usually Late’ Award goes to Mr Norway himself, JJ. Tour guiding us around Oslo and Kongsvinger, Joey showed that even in his home land, he is the guy we all love and adore. Despite our visit to Kongsvinger’s stadium almost ending in disaster involving me, a steering wheel, 2nd gear, a bold overtaking move, and the longest lorry in Norway, Joey showed us the sights in one of the best weekend trips of the year. For somebody who is not the greatest sleeper (it’s 4.28am), and enjoys the high tempo pace, Joey is a role model for me and how to ease off the pace, stay calm but still produce the goods.

The ‘Happiest Immigrant 2010’ Award goes to Gabor, a gentlemen I met while working in Hungary at the start of the year. A true football man and who I thoroughly enjoy reading on FB and his experiences in Australia and life over there. We all make decisions, many of us have lived and worked abroad, but I cannot think of anybody as cheery as Gabor over in Oz.

The ‘Up and Coming Superstar of 2010’ Award goes to my dear friend Buuude. Larry the News Guy is a staple on the radio, even here in Lausanne, where we can listen to his Sunday show on delayed recording. His achievements have been nothing short of impressive and a reward for working 8 days a week, and greater things lie ahead for 2011.

The ‘Social Media Queen 2010’ Award goes to m for being a truly dedicated blogger, tweeter and genuine social media star. Mallory was the first person ever to write a blog (I think) and she inspired me to get my pen and paper out, so blame or thank her for my random writing.

The ‘Victor Meldrew’ Award goes to another Uefa colleague of mine, AGN. Jimmy is one of the most miserable, bitter, and sulky people you could possibly meet. Not helped by the Redskins spectacularly bad season, nor his own crash and burn fantasy football season, Jim somehow has the ability to make my days shorter and to make me laugh. Thanks Victor and apologies for beating you on Sunday night.

The ‘Pick You Up When You’re Down’ Award goes to Ms Brodeur for her offer of a homemade cake when I had my two laptops stolen. Unquestionably one of the lowest points of my year, the gesture put a huge smile on my face and cheered me no end. I’m still waiting for the cake, but it doesn’t really matter as the warmth of the thought, did just the trick.

The ‘Winter Dream Maker’ Award goes to KK. Already having an amazing time in Vancouver, Kristina came up with tickets for Canada v Russia, possibly my best sporting event of the year, and up there with my all-time best that I’ll remember on my death bed. It was that special, and it would not have happened without Ms KK. Thank you K!

The ‘How to Do It In Genuine Style’ Award goes to a certain somebody in my immediate family who decided to crash into the Chief Exec’s car. Not only was it a Bentley, a £150k Bentley, he had only just got it back from the garage to repair damage the previous week after somebody else had crashed into him. This one is going down in history.

That concludes this year’s awards. I have surely missed one or two people that I would like to recognise, for which I apologise, but thanks to anybody and everybody who played a small, medium or large part of my 2010.