A Week Off

About once a season my long-suffering partner Lee convinces me —sometimes at the end of a bread knife— of our need for a winter getaway. As with this week I usually manage to plan this break around a bye so that even if I miss a training session or two I won’t miss a game.

Sometimes, however, I can’t avoid it. But rather than liberate me from the tension of the sideline being away can somehow ramp it up. It’s the not knowing that really gets you.

Take our round 4 match against Altona in 2008. We’d failed to win our last four matches of the 2007 season and we’d lost the first three of 2008 so, like the Bras, I was desperate for a win. But the match against the early league leaders had been over for more than 45 minutes and I still didn’t know the result. It wasn’t a good sign. I mean, had we won, I was certain, I would have received so many text messages and phone calls in the immediate aftermath of the game that, if there’s any validity to the fear that mobile phones emit harmful radiation, I would have dropped dead on the spot having lost my battle with cancer before I even knew I was in one.

I could have called one of the Bras myself, of course, but I wanted to delay any bad news if there was some. Live a little longer with the possibility of an unlikely victory or even a draw. But I was nervous, looking at my mobile frequently to make sure it had coverage, and that the battery was still charged. My mate James, who I was with at the time (it was his son’s Christening), must have wondered if I’d become a drug dealer —something that I’m sure would have made more sense to him than me being anxious about the result of a women’s football match where nothing in particular was riding on the result.

An hour after I knew the match had finished I still hadn’t called anyone and I began thinking of reasons why, if the news was good, no one had called me. Perhaps there’s no mobile phone coverage in Altona, I told myself, although it is less than 10km from Melbourne’s CBD. Perhaps, by some freak coincidence, they had all left their mobiles at home and had stopped in at the pub after the game delaying further their opportunity to give me the news. Or perhaps they’d simply got caught up signing autographs and doing media interviews after the game that they hadn’t had time to text or call. Bugger it. Only three excuses in and I was in the realm of the ridiculous.

An hour and a half after the match would have finished I could no longer stand the tension and I sent Liz a one-word text message that needed no further explanation. “Well?”

A minute later my phone beeped. “Not good I’m afraid. 11-0. But their coach didn’t think the score reflected the game.”

For a second I wondered if Altona’s coach had been implying that he thought his team was more superior than the score suggested, not the reverse as I’m sure Liz had meant. But that was by the by. Eleven zip was the largest defeat in Bras history and a real let down after our first three matches which, though all losses, were competitive. Jesus. 11-0. Eleven. I had conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, although I simply could not have avoided my trip away, I felt guilty that I’d abandoned them for what was obviously a difficult game and that I wasn’t there in the event they needed consoling. (“There there, let it all out, that’s it. You want another tissue? You sure? Look, perhaps you should. You’re getting snot on my jacket.”) That they may have barely noticed my absence —particularly since I’d left them in the more than capable hands of Marian’s hubby Tony, who had been coaching football teams considerably longer than me— was beside the point.

On the other hand, the tension of awaiting the result was over. And I sure was glad I missed the mauling. It felt like I’d dodged a bullet, like I’d arrived at the airport too late to join my colleagues on that flight that crashed on takeoff. More than that, by missing the game I had an alibi. Don’t look at me, I knew I could say to them at training the following week, when they recounted the game with ashen faces. I wasn’t even there. Of course I knew that the result wouldn’t have been any different had I been there.

I must admit, however, that despite the score I felt more guilt and regret than relief. I’ve always had a highly developed sense of responsibility and I feel that keenly when it comes to the Bras. But more than that, after all these years, the players of the Bras have become my friends and I enjoy spending time with them. Even when they ship 11 goals.


NEXT MATCH: Sunday June 20, v Melbourne Knights, Sumner Park, 11am


POST SCRIPT: The recriminations have begun after the Socceroos were spanked by Germany but, putting aside the obvious (Germany are quite simply better than us in all facets of the game), no-one has yet pointed the finger of blame at Bra midfielder, Bridget, who was in the stands for the match in Durban. Let’s examine the facts. Bridget didn't attend games in Germany for the 2006 World Cup and we performed wonderfully in all four matches. She then turns up in South Africa and we cop a hiding. Coincidence? I’m not so sure.