Playing the Field by Becky Ward EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Becky Ward
- Language: English
- Genre: contemporary romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.3 MB
- Price: Free
‘I know it’s been on the cards for months, but I still can’t believe it’s
actually come to this,’ my dad says, his voice heavy with defeat as he sits at
our kitchen table, staring at the message on the screen of his mobile phone.
I can count the number of times I’ve seen him this despondent on one
hand – and right now is one of the worst.
But I know why he’s so downhearted – because I’ve been sent the same
message. Thanks to a combination of greed and poor management, our
beloved football club has ignored the protests of all its fans and confirmed it
will be relocating to a stadium sixty-three miles away. Which means many
of the fans who, like him, have loyally supported the club through good
times and bad for most of their lives will no longer be able to go to the
home matches.
And the fact that this devastating news has come on the back of a
humiliating defeat yesterday to a team that didn’t even have all eleven
players after their striker was sent off – for assaulting a fan of all things! –
makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow.
‘After everything we did,’ Dad sighs.
We attended every consultation, replied to every email designed to make
us feel like our voices matter, even stood through a whole match with our
backs to the action, wearing T-shirts with ‘Keep Hamcott Park in Hamcott’
on the back, but to no avail. The eleventh-hour U-turn we were all praying
for never came. The final confirmation has just been posted on the club
website and emailed to fans.
‘I don’t mind doing the drive,’ I tell him, trying to find a way to make
things better. ‘I know it will mean not having a beer in the pub beforehand
and probably getting stuck in rush hour traffic on the way home, but we can
still go. Lots of people can’t. In some ways we’re the lucky ones.’
But we both know it won’t be the same. Not without the shouty bloke two
rows in front who thinks he knows more about the offside rule than the
referee. Or the old guy in front of him, who shuffles in on walking sticks
every Saturday and promptly falls asleep, often only waking up in time to
see the last ten minutes of the match. It will mean our club’s fans will make
up a smaller proportion of the crowd than the away fans even at our socalled home matches. It will be like every game is an away game.
‘Bob and Marge will no doubt be happy to squeeze into my back seat,’ I
say to Dad, still trying to find a silver lining. They’re the couple who’ve sat
next to us for the last twenty years, ever since the very first game Dad took
me and my sister Cassie to when we were four and six – old enough to
properly appreciate it. Thinking about all those happy afternoons at
Hamcott Park now, I can’t even begin to imagine the roar of the fans not
being a regular fixture in my life.
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