I took my Level 1 coaching course in 2008 and have tried to forget how simple life was before all this came along. It's been a very interesting first season for me and the team.
I've made plenty of mistakes and tried to learn as much as possible along the way. I've had some great help from some of the other coaches and parents at the club so I have just about managed to stay 1 step ahead of the team.
I had been trying to think of ways to raise a little bit of sponsorship to fund an away kit, as our manager had sponsored the home kit, and friends who run a swimming club had given me some suggestions about grants I could apply for or performing a sponsored event. During one of my regular runs at work I suddenly thought about dribbling a football and as I work for Barclays I thought about somehow linking it to the Premier League in some way.
So this is how the idea evolved... I thought about dribbling a football from our football club (Forest Glade) in Billericay to each of the London Premier League clubs. I think the distance would have worked out at about 50 miles and I was going to call the event the 'Premier League Dribble'.
I felt that the idea was too good just to raise money for a local football club so I thought that if I raised money primarily for a charity that I already supported as well as the football club that would be a much more worth while cause for people to support.
Fate then seemed to take over a little bit. When I looked at West Ham's website I was amazed to find that their chosen charity for the year was Richard House Children Hospice and I had supported them through Give As You Earn since 2001. Also the distance between FGFC and West Ham's ground was close to 26 miles (a marathon distance) so I thought the event should just involve West Ham. A quick call to Richard House in January was met with great enthusiasm and they kindly offered to contact West Ham on my behalf.
West Ham quickly agreed to support the event and Richard House decided to try and turn the event into a much bigger idea by involving other schools and youth groups... the Londondribblethon was born!
I've managed to talk myself out of doing a marathon for the last few years citing lack of time to train, lack of fitness and lack of purpose! Now I've not only managed to commit myself to dribbling a football 20 odd miles but organising the event as well. The furthest I had run in one go up until January was about 6 miles so I think this is going to be quite a challenge.
I have now done a couple of practice dribbles round the local park much to the amusement of the geese & ducks. 10 miles in just under 2 hours but found myself in a lot of pain (left knee & right heel) afterwards. I'm glad I'm only planning on doing this once.
You can stay up-to-date on Chris' progress by following the links on this page.