So you think it’s pressure being a football manager .. try cooking Crimbo dinner for a mean battalion of armed and hungry soldiers
GaryHolt HE’S THE CHEF
Pressure in football? Ho, Ho, Ho.
Listen, I was once the most hated man in the British Army and I cooked for 350 soldiers every day.
Anyone who feels stress over a ball being kicked about a pitch might want to try making Christmas dinner for an entire battalion.
This year I will be doing the cooking, as always.
It will bring back some flashbacks to my previous career as a chef in the armed forces and what worry is really all about.
The dinner is juggled around training, whether we have it early or late.
It’s a pressure pot of whether my turkey is going to be succulent and if my spuds come out just right.
Then there is the sauce, the gravy and the eternal question of whether there’s enough salt in the soup.
Even writing about it brings me out in a sweat.
The boys in my barracks were hard to please.
They would complain if their steak wasn’t done well enough and that type of thing. I took so much stick.
Trust me, feeding hungry squaddies is a tougher gig than anything football can throw at you. No matter how good you are, it’s hard to shake the tag as the enemy in the eating stakes.
My real dream was to own a restaurant as I’m more a front of house than a front line type of guy.
But cooking is my passion and my wife Lisa and the kids are in for a treat on Tuesday.
I will be able to get my apron on and serve them at home, which hasn’t always been the case.
Christmas as a footballer in England is a bit different as there is usually a fair bit of travelling involved.
It’s the habit of every player to scan the Boxing Day fixture list to see if you’re at home.
One season when I was at Nottingham Forest we were home to Chesterfield and I thought, ‘Magic!’
It’s an accepted part of the job that on Christmas Day itself you have to go into the club and train.
Forest boss Gary Megson had ordered us it to come in at 5pm so we all arrived and wished each other a Merry Christmas.
All of the players and staff passed on season’s greetings but the gaffer was nowhere to be seen.
I popped my head out of the tunnel and there he was, alone, standing at the far corner of the ground deep in his own thoughts.
He certainly didn’t look in the mood to be speaking to anyone. Eventually Megson gathered us all in and told us we’d be staying the night in a hotel down the M1.
We all just stood there stunned, there had been little warning, Ebenezer Scrooge had sprung it on us.
That was quite some bus journey as we headed down the motorway and pulled up at our hotel which was actually past Chesterfield. That only added insult to injury.
It was to get worse. There was only a skeleton staff on due to the holiday and there wasn’t even food arranged for us.
The memory of it makes me shudder to this day but there was a silver lining as my wife Lisa had packed my bag, slipped in a few items of food and right at the bottom was a can of beer.
I retired to my room and toasted myself a Merry Christmas. We went on to win the game but if the manager ever wonders why things didn’t go well for him, he should wonder no more.
Players are conditioned to be training at Christmas and secretly some of us actually enjoy getting out of the house. It’s a chance to get away from all of the chaos and focus on football. Listen, it’s certainly no hardship as I’m at a club where Christmas has come early. It’s no exaggeration to say that I pinch myself when I look at the table and see where we are, what we have done and how we have gone about it. To be sitting on 29 points at this stage of the season is surreal and it makes it all the more special to be involved in football at this time of year. Football is a job which can also be a hobby so is important to remember there are people working through the festive period doing jobs which can be a matter of life or death.
Nurses, doctors, the fire service and police are the heroes in our communities, not footballers.
The hard work our players have put in during the first half of the season means they have earned the right to enjoy their Christmas.
The boys at Livingston will be in training on Christmas morning. It will be a quick session and then they’ll be away home to their families.
Our gift will be going into the winter break not wondering where our next result is coming from and I’m grateful for that.
And with that I’d like to wish all the MailSport readers a warm Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.