Bus trips to Morecambe and wise about dongles

By Matt Lawrence

Published 17:26 31/10/11

• 

Matt Lawrence has played for seven league clubs - including Fulham, Crystal Palace and Millwall, for whom he appeared in the 2004 FA Cup final - during his 16-year career. Now with League Two Gillingham, his diary will appear on MirrorFootball every Monday.

**

Monday, October 24th
Games are coming thick and fast at the moment. It’s a time to ice, get patched up and move on to the next opponent.

Today’s training is devoted to tomorrow’s game against Swindon. The gaffer sets us up in the formation we are going to play and we walk through set-pieces for and against.

Swindon’s season is so far proving to be very Jekyll and Hyde, much like our own. They either seem to win, or lose, drawing very rarely.

Unsurprisingly, for any team managed by Paolo Di Canio, they are particularly strong on the right wing.

I spend the afternoon speaking to o2 trying to sort out a dongle.

I feel slightly unclean talking to the lady on the other end of the line about my dongle (it just sounds a little weird), but it makes a change that she’s not breathing heavily and charging me £2.50 a minute for the privilege.

Tuesday, October 25th
I’m sat up at 4.30am staring at this bloody computer screen and just hoping that words will come.

Being a footballer, at this moment in time, I’m supposed to use the word “gutted.” That doesn’t really do my current state of mind justice.

Shouldn’t this losing thing get easier as you get older? It would make sense if it did, but I can safely say it gets harder and harder.

We’ve just lost 2-0 away at Swindon. Quite often in life you don’t get your just rewards, and this is another of those times.

Tonight we played pretty well as a team unit. We defended solidly, kept possession of the ball well in periods and created enough chances to win the game.

The only solace that I can come up with is that at least we were beaten by two very good goals. All goals are in some way preventable, but these two strikes were good enough to grace any pitch.

This doesn’t make the pill much easier to swallow, but at this time in the morning I’m clutching at straws. Sod it…………gutted sums it up nicely!

Wednesday, October 26th
A much needed day off to rest the aching limbs and to try and forget about this cruel game we love.

After a much needed lie in I headed into town with a couple of my teammates. One of the lads is in plaster, so we dragged him out to try and get his mind off things.

They always say that you learn something new every day. Well, today, I learnt two things: that the lunch-time menu in Prezzo is bloody good value and that if you drive close enough to the person in front when exiting the car park, you don’t need to pay!

Now, I hasten to add, that I I’m not advocating this deplorable behaviour and I wasn’t driving the car (I was heckling from the cheap seats!). Anyway, Mr NCP is hardly short of a bob, or two.

Thursday, October 27th
Another day, another dollar. (Zimbabwean as always.)

Was great to get into training. Before that could commence I had to have a photo taken. I’m not overly sure what for, or by whom. Probably Crimewatch as usual!

The photographer must have mistaken me for someone else. He wanted to have me in all sorts of unenviable poses that would have me ridiculed for months to come.

“How about I take one while you are lifting weights?”

“No.”

“How about I take one while you are doing press-ups?”

“No.”

“How about you flex your biceps?”

“If I had any, maybe. No.”

So, we agreed on a headshot. Simple.

Training was right up my street today – defensive work. Sliding, heading, tackling, kicking and shouting; you’re never too old to roll your sleeves up and get your knees dirty.../

With the new flat starting to take shape it was time to start the construction of my new furniture. I don’t want to over-dramatise this, but banging a couple of nails in is construction to me.

I started to build the CD holder at 10pm and was still going at midnight.

As I banged the tenth of twenty nails into place I suddenly remembered my surroundings. People above, below and on either side. Oooops! Welcome to the neighbourhood. Guess I’m won’t be borrowing any cups of sugar too soon.

Friday, October 28th
I can strongly recommend never doing a coach trip from Gillingham to Morecambe…certainly not with only one driver!

I spent the first 30 minutes of the journey on the phone to o2 trying to install my dongle onto the computer (and that sure as hell isn’t a euphemism!). The poor telephone operator must have thought that either Jeremy Beadle was calling collect from beyond the grave, or someone had escaped from Broadmoor and stolen a mobile.

DIY and modern technology: the bane of my life.

Three hours into the trip and a light bulb switched on in the drivers head. He was only allowed to drive for four and a half hours before taking a 45 minutes break. We were stranded half way up the country with nowhere to go and no Paul Gascoigne to drive the bus. Stafford services it was!

I was quite at home surrounded by 300 OAPs and a Costa Fortune; the rest of the lads had to entertain themselves by perusing the top shelf of WHSmith.

An unnamed member of staff was overheard at the Pick ‘n’ Mix counter trying to work out the price. He knew that it was £1 per 100g, but couldn’t quite work out how much 0.4kg was. Thank goodness he does a lot better at washing the kit!

After leaving Gillingham at 9.30am we pulled into our hotel in Lancaster at 5.45pm. Now, I can’t be bothered to do the maths this second, but that’s a bloody long time with my arse sat on the bus.

Saturday, October 29th

Do we have to talk about football? Okay, but very briefly.

We lost 2-1 away to Morecambe and I think the score line flattered us a touch. I hate losing enough as it is, without being out-fought and out-battled. That’s the cardinal sin in my eyes and why we are talking about football no more!

The coach journey home was less eventful, apart from being force-fed the bloody X-Factor.

Well, that’s what the credits said it was called, but it sounded more like a karaoke night in the Dog & Duck; which to be perfectly honest is a wholly more appropriate title.

The only two things that stick in my mind about the programme was some pre-pubescent kid trying to “sing” The Clash with a bag of marbles in his mouth and some deathly pale girl who’d stuck her finger in a plug socket.

Apart from that the programme was highly forgettable, so it’s no wonder the apathetic masses are glued to it every week.

And before anyone tells me not to bother watching it next time…I won’t be and I wouldn’t have been if I could have got my f’in’ dongle working!

Sunday, October 30th
I had a wonderful newspaper free day today. No reminders necessary. I spent the day with my kids and took them swimming and for lunch. No warm down required as I must have scaled the flume steps about 3 million times and my legs feel as though that is no over-exaggeration.

To be perfectly honest, you’re lucky, or unlucky (depending on how you want to look at it) that any words are even hitting the screen. I’ve just returned from watching Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. I’m flying pretty high myself. Partly the alcohol; partly the euphoria and partly buzzing from the memories brought back.

Noel played a good wedge of his new album and a whole host of Oasis hits.

The guy’s a genius and sure did his bit on erasing the horrendous memories of Morecambe.

Fancy winning £3,000 for FREE this month? Play Mirror Football Streak for your chance to win cash prizes! Start predicting now!