• I'll always dream of...

    A step away from food today, my other passions in life, football and cars combine in this latest post. Few things truly represent Italy more than a Ferrari. If I was going to own one as a child, I needed a plan, somehow, becoming the next football sensation seemed like the most appropriate avenue. 


    You probably remember being asked as a child what you wanted to be when you “grew up”. Friends would say things that sounded relatively normal, ‘fireman’, ‘policeman’, ‘doctor’. There was always that child, Michael Cross in this case, that wanted to be a ‘footballer’; he was ceremoniously discouraged to ever dream again.

    To be different however, my answer would not be what I wanted to be, but what I wanted to own. ‘Ferrari 308 GTB’. That was going to be my car, but ‘how was I ever going to afford it’ as Miss Burton asked me. ‘Rob a bank, Miss’. If Italians hadn’t developed such a bad reputation as gangsters I wouldn’t have been forced to visit the school nurse for a ‘chat’.

    At a young age though, it had occurred to me that I needed a plan, how was I ever going to legally get my Ferrari 308?

    This all happened at the same time of discovering that I was now a defender. Not the classiest, not the greatest, but armed with my diadora’s and my posters of Franco Baresi and a young Paolo Maldini, I was inspired. ‘Become a footballer’ I thought, ‘but don’t mention that to your teachers. Poor Michael, never saw it coming’.

    I would spend hours tackling myself, discovering that Franco and Paolo made what they do look relatively easy. Their ability something exceptional, something which few since have ever really recreated. If I could get as good as them, I could afford that Ferrari, the basic grasp of work life balance yet to afflict that naive seven year old.

    I’ll see this side of me every week when I coach, the under seven’s now probably dream of a Bugatti Veyron, but I would take that 308 everyday; that was/is my dream car. Alas my football ability would never match up to that skill, my perennial injuries ensure that I’ll never get there.

    If only aged seven I could have decided on another profession to get me there. I don’t have the stomach and I’m too sensitive to be a doctor. Too lazy to be a solicitor. And if I were a fireman, I’d treat every call out as a perfect on site cooking venue, not ideal when the aim is to save lives.

    I was only seven, I had yet to discover anything other than ‘those’ careers, and now at thirty I’m even less likely to own a 308, but I can always dream. I should really have taken inspiration of where I saw the car for the first time, on TV.

    I should have become a private investigator, I should have gone down the road of being the next Magnum PI. The car after all, comes with the job.

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