So off to Stockport, to watch my little ‘tinpot’ football team play in the ‘proper’ football league. I used the game as a target for me to drive the furthest since my crash.
I’m the kind of person who would always get in the car and drive anywhere – for at least two years I had a job where I would drive on average 50,000 miles per year. Whenever any of my friends wanted to be taken anywhere, I would always volunteer to drive. I was told I was perfect girlfriend material and was often a ‘designated driver’ on a night out. I never believed I would ever think twice about taking the car anywhere, or driving under any circumstance. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I have lost my driving ‘nerve’ more that I find myself thinking twice about something which had been second nature to me. I have family in Manchester, so combined the game with a family trip. Little did I know at the end of the weekend there would be a family bonus when I got to see an Aunt and Uncle that I hadn’t seen since 1975. It also allowed me to drive along one of my favourite stretches of motorway – the M62 between Manchester and Leeds, where you cross the Pennines. It suddenly felt so normal to be driving again, as though all my reactions had returned, and my fears had disappeared.
As to the game, when the Daggers ran I out I really was ‘proud to be a dagger’. This is what the football league means to me, my little tinpot local football team playing with the big boys, after having earned the right to do so. The team played magnificently and the result did not do us justice. There aren’t many words that I can use, as I am already ‘blubbling’ as much as I did on the day we were presented with the Conference League Trophy. We didn’t get the result that we wanted but the team played their socks off. Overall, I think it was a very emotional day (for the right reasons) for anyone connected with the club.