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What if you could go back to one particular moment in your life and make a different decision? Would you take the chance that your life might be worse than it is now – for the trade off that it might just be better. And what if, having gone back and made that one change, your life turned out to be at best no better off? Is it still a risk worth taking, is the unknown, the possible, the unknown possible, really worth more then that the known actual, however mundane and depressing that actual might seem right now, in this minute? Perhaps these are questions we have all asked ourselves from time to time, particularly in moments of deep despair, frustration, regret or sorrow. If only we had done something differently, then perhaps things would have turned out better.
Perhaps indeed they would. On the other hand, things may very well have turned out worse or perhaps there is no such thing as better or worse. Perhaps our lives are already mapped out, so that any changes we may make in the past will inevitably lead us to the same conclusion in the future. That, of course, is both possible and impossible. And of course, there is no guarantee that having gone back to relive it, our lives would be any better than they are now. Inevitably, we would lose something – possibly as much, or even more than we gain. It's a risk for sure – but then what if we throw another equation into the works. What if we can go back and not only change our own destiny, but that of someone else? Someone we had once loved, someone who had ended up in a very bad place in life. What then the risks versus the rewards? No longer we are committing a desperate selfish act of desperation, but a selfless act of love. At least, we can always tell ourselves that.
And here I am with that exact choice to make. A trade off, that may – or may not – help myself, Derek Wakefield, former International footballer who once seemed to have the footballing world at his feet. Now living in a dingy Glasgow bedsit where two Policemen have just left, having questioned me about a murder. And there is the second trade off. The person who was murdered was not just a random figure, was not just someone the Police could have no reason to suspect me of killing – although I have no alibi for the time of the event. It's highly unlikely you know – or should I say knew – this person, apart of course from reading the small, almost insignificant couple of paragraphs on the various newsites, the thirty seconds at most bulletin on the TV news.
Denise Lawson was no-one special. At least, not in terms that most people would appreciate. She was not a model, or a movie star. She hadn't written a best selling novel, or won business woman of the year. She had been, at the moment of her untimely death – being just thirty two years of age – working in her local town of Bradford as a prostitute. The Police informed me she had been 'working the streets' as they liked to call it, for a number of years now and they believed she had been using the world's oldest profession to support her heroin habit. They showed me pictures of her – she had not been a pretty sight towards the end, and I could not hold back the tears. A life, wasted, for no reason. A life that, just perhaps, I could have saved.
I realise some people object to stuff that isn't purely about football. Yet with this story, and my Duncan MacLeod one, I feel that what happens off the pitch is as important as what happens on it. The characters do not simply revolve around what happens on a football pitch. That said, what happens on the pitch is still important to the story - it would be pointless otherwise in terms of this forum.
As the demo for FM08 appeals little to me at the moment - and besides I have two other FM07 stories running, plus the FMS net game - this story is on FM07 using a weegie update.
I first met Denise Lawson in 1986 when I was fourteen years old, she was thirteen. Her father had just been appointed pastor of my local church, where I attended the youth club and played in the football team until I was fifteen – when I signed youth forms with my local club St Mirren and was forbidden to play any more for the church side. She was a very pretty girl, strawberry blonde hair, rich blue eyes, and cute little English accent. I was fourteen, and the hormones were soaring through my body. For the first time in my life, I truly fell head over heals in love.
Not only was she very pretty, Denise was also a very friendly, highly intelligent person. I tried to spend as much time as possible in her presence, particularly at youth club – whilst at the same trying not to look so obvious to my mates, who would no doubt overwhelm me with their good natured ribbing. I even volunteered to help the Pastor with some renovations on house and garden that summer, just hoping Denise would be around, which sometimes she was, and sometimes to my great sadness she wasn't. Occasionally I would have the chance to be alone with her as I worked the garden and even later life, these remained some of my most precious memories. I can still remember her smile, the smell of her hair, her laughter, the twinkle in her eyes.
Denise was never my girlfriend – even though I often wished she was, and even though her friends assured me she wanted to be. As a teenager I was painfully shy, and I was also painfully aware that Denise's father was a minister. Any impure thoughts I might have about his daughter would surely condemn me to the deepest parts of hell. Nevertheless that summer was a joy to me, and my heart almost broke when school term began and Denise with her younger sister Margaret, were sent away to boarding school. My life went on, I turned fifteen and St Mirren came calling.
I was, even then I knew, a fairly talented footballer and having little other skills in life I made it my goal to become the greatest player Scotland had ever produced. It was goal I might well have achieved, but in the end I never did. Denise came home at Christmas and I did see her once at church, but my life was becoming more and more caught up with my footballing career. I was only in the youth team, but I was determined to make my first team debut as soon as I could, and I had little time to be distracted by girls. Not even one as pretty and alluring as Denise Lawson.
Denise was around whenever she was home, and once or twice even came to watch me play for the St Mirren youth team. Over the course of the next two years, I probably had plenty of chances to 'ask her out' but I never did. Exactly why, to this day I still cannot understand. When I was 17, a group of us decided to celebrate New Year together in a Youth Hostel near Inverness. Why we decided this I have no idea now, but it seemed a great idea at the time to be away from our parents and have some fun. Denise came along too, and I spent some time with her, enjoying her company and wishing we could be together forever. It was the last time I ever spent any real time with her, as three months later her father moved to another church back in England and I had my career to think about here in Scotland. I had just received an offer to play for Glasgow Rangers and everything else, Denise included, faded into insignificance in light of what I thought at the time was the greatest moment of my life.
Well I certainly hope it conveys something, there is going to be a lot of 'me' in this in many ways, demi-autobiographical. I'm not sure yet, but I think this will be the C/FMS story I've always wanted to write but never quite achieved.
When I signed for Rangers, I was just a few weeks short of my eighteenth birthday. It was, as far as I was concerned, the greatest moment of my life. Sure, playing for St Mirren had been a fine experience but this was Rangers and this was my dream. In my time with Rangers I would be priveleged to play along side some of my heroes, Ally McCoist, Mark Hatelely, Richard Gough, Brian Laudrup. But none of them could beat the moment when, upon arriving at the club for my day of training, I was greeted by none other than the legendary John Greig.
My time at Rangers should have been great. The club were on the road to securing nine successive league titles, and I was right there in the midst. I broke into the Scotland side – choosing the land of my birth over the land of my father – and by the time things started to fall apart, I had already amassed 12 caps for my country. Yet success for me came at a price – a price I was too young, too naïve, too arrogant to understand. I was a high profile figure now, playing for a high profile club but I just wanted to be one of the lads, and all too often I would end up involved in some pub brawl. It couldn't go on, and it didn't and the only surprise to me now, looking back, is the remarkable patience shown to me by my gaffer, Walter Smith.
Four years almost to the day after signing for my boyhood heroes, after another front page headline about me being arrested for brawling in the street, drunk and disorderly, Walter called my into his office and told me that the club had accepted bids from Arsenal and Manchester City for my services. I did not want to go to Arsenal or Manchester City, but Walter made it quite clear that I could either accept a move, or end up playing in the reserves for the remainder of my contract. I was no longer wanted at Ibrox, and in the end I chose the bright lights of London over the lesser lights of Manchester's second club. It was a move that was to turn into a complete disaster.
It was whilst I was at Arsenal that I met my future wife, who become the mother of my only child. Linda Hargreaves was a budding movie star, who desperately wanted to get to Hollywood. We met at a shindig organised by mutual friends, got married three weeks later in a glitzy ceremony that made the front pages of some rags, and separated by the time my son, Ryan, was born just ten months later. Linda moved to the USA when Ryan was year old, and although I send him cards at birthdays and Christmas, I have not seen him since then and I don't expect I ever will.
My career at Arsenal soon became as untenable as my time at Rangers and when my contract expired the club did not renew it and I was told I could go. Anywhere, they didn't care as long as it was far away from what was then Highbury. Of course I found other clubs. Birmingham, Bolton, Hearts and eventually ending up at Morton. My lesson though was never learned, the money I should have been saving for my future frittered away on drink, drugs and the bookies. When I lunged into a stupid tackle, playing for Morton in a league match at Kircaldy, I broke my leg in three place, badly twisted my knee and my playing days were over.
I'd had the world at my feet. I could, and should, have been one of the brightest stars of my generation. Instead my career, which had been littered with disgrace, ended in humiliation. I had little money, few friends and I didn't even have the guts to kill myself. Yesterday the Police had come calling – I hadn't even noticed the article in the press – and today a letter arrived, offering me a managers job, ironically enough in Bradford.
And so there were the final additions to my juggling act. I have been given the chance – just one chance – to go back in time, to relive my life from a moment of my choosing. But in doing so, I will be giving up this job opportunity. More importantly, I might even be giving up the very existance of my son, Ryan. Yet as I sit here, the fridge is empty save some cans of beer, my son is in the USA and if truth be told has never really felt like my son anyway, and the job offer is from Bradford Park Avenue. I hardly feel I am really giving up all that much.
I am sorry Ryan, but I cannot turn down the chance to save the fate of the only person I have truly loved in my utterly selfish and miserable life.
Originally posted by Peacemaker7:
Thanks Terk; Amaroq.
Well I certainly hope it conveys something, there is going to be a lot of 'me' in this in many ways, demi-autobiographical. I'm not sure yet, but I think this will be the C/FMS story I've always wanted to write but never quite achieved.
But who knows
Amazing start, I shall be following this with avid interest.
Originally posted by Wegason:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Originally posted by Peacemaker7:
Thanks Terk; Amaroq.
Well I certainly hope it conveys something, there is going to be a lot of 'me' in this in many ways, demi-autobiographical. I'm not sure yet, but I think this will be the C/FMS story I've always wanted to write but never quite achieved.
But who knows
Amazing start, I shall be following this with avid interest. </BLOCKQUOTE>
The Strands of Time 
Brilliant start, emotional and 'true'; will follow this closely. 
Linear Mode
