Words Lisa Klaveness
I still feel like I'm the football player. It’s the identity I have, so I still feel that way even though I'm not playing anymore. I wouldn’t say I miss playing, but I do feel a sort of melancholy. I guess it is a sentimental thing, I sort of grieve.
It was not always this way. I started to play football very late, I was about 11 years old and before that I was not interested. I remember my Dad wanted me to join in a boys game because he was interested in football, so I joined in, but I was not good. I thought I was good, but I didn't know anything about the game and it turns out, I was not good. After the game, I saw something in my Dad’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, there was no pressure, but I had this sense that it was disappointing to him that I wasn’t good at this game.
So, literally from the day after that game I trained all waking hours and the obsession started. I guess it was sort of a need to prove something to my Sad, but very quickly it became something else. It's weird, but I developed a sort of friendship with the ball. I still wasn’t really interested in the team, or with the game, but I fell in love with the ball.
From that moment on, I always had a ball with me. I used to sleep with the ball in my bed. I had a ball with me that the funeral for my granddad. When I got confirmed, I had a ball with me.
Every old photo of me is with a ball. It wasn’t popular and I would get shouted at, but I was crazy about the ball, I can’t really explain it other than it was an obsession.
I wanted to control everything with the ball and I had all these aims and targets that I needed to hit, like juggling the ball 100 times, 200 times, 300 times. I ended up with thousands and developed a sore neck from looking down all the time. I was obsessed.
I also had this thing where I wanted to go from my house all the way to school juggling the ball and without letting it ever touch the ground and whenever I lost it, I had to go back where I lost it and start from there. It took hours to get anywhere and added three kilometres to the journey, but I did it.
People just knew this thing about me, I loved the ball. I even wrote poems on the ball. It became a running joke in the classroom and a part of my identity. It was not something I was ashamed of it was pretty sweet.
I remember seeing the pride in my Dad’s face as I started to improve. He could see for example, that I could go from juggling 10 to 100, or using my left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. I saw how proud he was and how impressed he was.
My Dad isn’t interested in money or fame. He cares for a good touch or a good pass, that’s his passion.
I'm the same and still when I watch a game the core of it for me is the performance, the dance. I've learnt through the years to see the business side of the game, and I love to talk about everything to do with football, but for me the core of it is the performance.
When I was younger, we had a big Saint Bernard dog and this big van for us all and the dog. One day I was in Maths or something at school and gazing out of the window – of course I had my foot on a ball under the desk - when I saw my Dad's van coming into the school at something like 100km an hour, straight into the parking lot and he ran out. I'm not used to my Dad coming to school. He's very modest guy, not like me I like to talk but he's shy. I start to think the worst and expect bad news, you know, I’m thinking ‘who has died’?
As he jumps out of the van, in his hand is this letter saying I had been picked for the regional team. It’s a big thing to be called up to the regional team, and he is so proud he is crying. It's the biggest moment for me. I remember we brought cakes to celebrate on the way home and of course we had a ball in the van. It was very much me and my Dad.
When I turned professional I had become so used to it being just me and the ball that some of those skills I had developed alone, now needed to be trained out of me so that I could play within a team. I could juggle and keep the ball by my feet, but this isn’t very useful in a game. I remember looking up and seeing other players and thinking ‘oh there are other people here’.
All those hours juggling or hitting targets that my Dad had painted on the garage door, meant I could out-dribble anyone but I could not play a long pass. It was no longer just me and the ball, but now the team took over and the team became my driving force. That was really lovely.
I kept my love of the ball though. The day before I retired, I remember I was still out there even though I knew I was quitting tomorrow. I'm not bragging, I think it's just weird, you know? But the desire is still in me, so there I am, 30 years old, working part-time as a player and part-time as a judge and I’m there stood alone, on a freezing cold pitch for one hour just shooting. I remember thinking; ‘This is just pathetic. I'm in a legal clinic tomorrow and here I am, all alone with the ball doing this development training, for a game I am quitting in the morning’ - it was a love affair.
My Dad also loves the ball. He is in his 70s now and he will still take 20 footballs out to a field when he wants to relax. He is out there on his own training like a 17-year-old guy, taking a shot and then getting a new ball out of the bag. So, I know where I get that from, I think it is in the genes to love the ball.
