Captains Corner - Busy Doing Nothing
At 10:30 on Wednesday morning, I opened a WhatsApp message from Craig Richards from the Saint's Community Foundation Team.
Craig asked me could I assemble players together on Thursday evening for a training session as Kristian Wolff, the Saint's head coach and players Sione Mata'utia and Dan Norman would like to visit the club to meet our children and coaches and observe the training sessions of all age groups.
My initial thought was this is extremely short notice to organise such a big event but too big an opportunity to miss, a huge commitment and challenge and potentially a logistical nightmare but a dream come true for our children.
I asked Craig a simple question, why Portico Vine? He said that Kristian Woolf noticed how our children stood out at the Saint's open training session that took place at Saint's ground a few weeks ago and he was very impressed with how many were there.
I sprung into action and the first thing I did was message my wing woman, Nadine Melling who started the lines of communication and to make sure we had good numbers attending.
Now the next thing I'll say is you can never please everyone..! But we endeavoured to let as many people as possible know in the shortest period of time.
The overwhelming majority of people were delighted and realised the opportunity for our children and we were up and running and it was all systems go.
We had nearly 100 players and what looked like nearly as many parents on the night.
Craig Richards arrived first and was gob smacked by the turn out and said Portico Vine always delivers.
Kristian Woolf and the players arrived shortly after Craig and we commenced to observe the training sessions and to interact with the players and coaches.
The positivity shown by Kristian, Sione and Dan towards everyone and everything at Portico Vine was outstanding and they were all unbelievably complimentary towards us as a club and all agreed they never had facilities like we have when they were kids.
It took forever to get around all the teams as the children had so many questions and Kristian and the lads were in no hurry to leave.
The positive interaction was fantastic and the questions and answers were brilliant from the players and coaches, and by all accounts it was an incredible time for the vast majority of those who attended.
Kristian lead the way and chose the route and who he spoke to and yes it was a lengthy evening and I did receive a bit of criticism off a couple of people but you can only try your very best.
Before Kristian Woolf left, he presented Al Cheetham one of our coaches with a Tongan / Portico Vine shirt in our new clubhouse and in Big Al's words "I'm so grateful and what a fantastic evening"
God love you Al Cheetham 😍
The Captain x
Billy Vaughan
Vice Chairman