About..... "My Sweet Lady"
Following the demise of the relationship mentioned in "A Million Miles Away" and following the end of my 2nd year at college, where I had finished the first year of the degree course I`d been promoted to, I decided to get away from it all during the summer.
I couldn`t face returning to my home town to watch my ex walk around with someone else, nor face friends that had stabbed me in the back so badly. So I gingerly elected to go to America, and spend the summer on a children’s summer camp in Connecticut.
The brochures made it all sound like a wonderful experience, I knew I wanted to go, but couldn`t imagine what skills I could teach there as a counsellor. I eventually offered my services to the Performing Arts Dept., as scriptwriter, guitar teacher and songwriter.
People quoted it in the brochure as "The best summer I`ve ever had in my life." However, now having a keen interest in marketing, I know that one persons experience isn't always another's. But they only publish the favourable ones.
What can I say? It was, without doubt, the best summer I have ever had in my entire life. The culture on the camp was that swearing, smoking and drinking were all forbidden. Instead of discouraging people and pointing out people's failures, to simply encourage one another. Whenever you saw someone doing something right you simply shout across "Good Job!" to let them know their efforts have been appreciated.
The camp changed the kids forever I`m sure. They all arrived with Walkman, mini-tvs, battery operated computer games and enough money to buy more then enough batteries. In fact every one of these kids had more money then me... and they were 8-12 years old.
These various items soon found there way to the storage cupboards. The kids found living in a forest, next to huge lake, with lots of camping crafts to learn, any sport they wanted, eating together in a large cabin, was far better fun then any of these devices gave them. Mother Nature won hands down.
I only had one offer for the guitar lessons. This fourteen-year-old turned up with an electric guitar and asked me to teach him. After about 15 minutes it became an absolutely hopeless waste of time... and he spent the entire week teaching me what I could master of his phenomenal skills.
The camp was great fun, and had the best atmosphere I`d ever lived in. Of course we had opportunities to go off camp and do all the things we couldn`t do on camp. Which made them all rather more enjoyable then normal!
And of course it had to happen. Eventually the thirteen Brits, five of them woman, were offered a challenge that Americans could beat us at soccer.
At the time they were having a special "Soccer Camp", as part of the camp, and included the Number 3 USA Youth Goalkeeper. I knew that because he was one of Youth staff in my tent! A bet was made that I wouldn`t score against him in the match. But these kids could play and were on the camp to mainly practice their soccer skills and get proper coaching. Which was hard to find in the USA schools.
The challenge was accepted, even though, three of the guys hated football and hadn`t kicked a ball since the age of 5. The girls were up for it though! And we did have two of the English coaches from the soccer camp.
Me, well I`d always managed to get away with being a goalkeeper as well. In fact I played for the college 1st team, in the year they won promotion for the first time. Though we did lose my final game for them 5-0, with 4 goals being rather put down to goalkeeper error. The 1st slipped through my hands, the second through my legs. The third goal I`d fallen over running out to the attacker who laughed as he dribbled it round me, stopped the ball on the goal-line, laid down and headed it in. The fourth goal hit the post and bounced off my back into the net. I`ll never forget it.
The college newspaper at the time wrote rather a special report on the match, concluding that I couldn`t be blamed for the final goal, a penalty. They claimed I`d said I was completely un-sighted of the shot!
However, I also enjoyed an attacking right mid-fielders role, and for that game in the USA I played the Paul Gascoigne role, but without the tears.
What we didn`t expect, was the almost the entire camp, of about 3,000, to turn up for the match to cheer the Americans on! We decided in the dressing room one thing we weren`t going to do, was lose! Summer camp or no summer camp, we weren`t going to surrender football, sorry, soccer, to the yanks!
It could have been cup final day at Wembley that day, for the atmosphere generated. And it was a brilliantly matched game. The girls got stuck in like no tomorrow and time after time somehow we cleared the danger and managed the odd counter attack.
The final score? USA 0 ENGLAND 2. The first goal early in the second half, the second killer goal five minutes before full time, just when the all the USA pressure had looked like earning them an equaliser.
The scorer of that second vital goal? Well, why do you think I recall the story! I broke from midfield with the ball and ended up in a one to one situation with the USA`s No 3 Youth goalkeeper, who had in fact made some wonderful saves during the match. Now he was running out to close down the angle on me.
I decided to place it to his left, but in trying, slipped and accidentally sliced it to his right! He had correctly anticipated I would put it to his left and had started to dive. He watched in despair the ball pass his right foot to trickle in, off the post. It stopped just over the line.
After the match he genuinely congratulated on my skill. On how I`d "Out-thought him in that one-to-one." I was about to tell him the truth, but for a change I decided to hold back. It`s not often I`d been called a football wizard and I decided to simply enjoy it.
I am now, though, a football wizard. Well, at computer football that is. With hours if not days, if not weeks (Months and years even.) wasted playing "Sensible Soccer". Where Hull City don`t sit at the bottom of Div3 as they do in real-life right now. Under my guidance they won successive promotions, The League Cup, then the Premiership and F.A. Cup. Then the European Cup. Then all four in a season successively, before I took the England job! As England Player-Manager I won a hat-trick of European Championships and World Cups. Even when I checked back to Hulls progress after I`d left them, the team I`d built up won something major, sometimes three out the four, every season. Now that's good management!
One spectator at the USA V England match, was the female lifeguard I wrote this song for. Being the summer, many of the Performing Arts lessons were given outside and the PA block was next to the swimming pool.
I`d noticed very early on in my days there, that during my "Improvisation" lessons which were done outside, the lifeguard at that time was a tall, leggy blonde. I was soon asking questions as to who she was. Eventually I got to meet her a staff meeting.
It was actually quite difficult to bump into her, because she didn`t take part in the staff activities. After her lifeguard duties she just used to return straight away to her cabin and hardly socialised.
I then found out the reason. The main reason she had decided to come on the camp was to try and get over her broken marriage. She was offering her services as a lifeguard in return for her own two kids being on the camp at a reduced rate. Which is why they had their own family cabin.
Of course, make yourself unavailable and everyone wants you. There were several men on the camp trying to get a date with her. But she declined all offers. I was one of the lucky few in fact that managed to get her into conversation.
I got to know the person behind the image. Every time I watched her I admired her courage in doing what she was doing. She had been badly let down by her husband. She had decided that rather then go to pieces, to offer her love and care to the kids on the camp. To use the time to find a new direction for her life after the camp ended.
I wrote the song for her, to let her know I knew what she was going through and thinking. She sat on the lifeguard tower, high above everyone looking down, caring for unknowns, while hurting so much inside herself.
I actually went round to her cabin to play it to her as a surprise. At first she was a little sceptical of my motives for turning up out of the blue at her cabin with my guitar and didn`t want to invite me in. But eventually let me in after I said that I simply had a surprise for her, that I hoped she would like and sang the song to her.
After singing it she politely said that she`d enjoyed it, but could I please leave as she was actually quite busy.
In fact three days later I was worried that she was avoiding me, because I hadn`t seen her since. However, when I did eventually see her, she came over, smiled and gave her explanation.
Apparently she had been moved by the song and that I had bothered to write her a song. A song that was so apt for her, that she didn`t want to embarrass me with the floods of tears she knew she was about to unleash. So had quickly made every excuse to get rid of me!
She also asked me for a copy of the lyrics, which I promised I would. And it is a regret to this day that I never actually got round to it. But hopefully one day she`ll hear this CD on the radio or something... and faint!