Sporting Heroes
Ian Botham
1 March 2007
During my time working in Brunei I met many superstars, one of whom was the legendary Michael Schumacher.
He was very pleasant and wanted to listen and learn during our coaching sessions and, to be fair, he wasn't a bad player, very quick--even without his Ferrari!!
Michaels only problem was that he was far too fit! We had done a full two-hour session, had a short break and he was ready for more. Only I didn't realise how much more! Three hours of one-to-one coaching later I finally convinced him that that was enough. He jogged off and I went for a lie down!
While there we had many celebrity football matches. During one of these matches my old mate Ian "Beefy" Botham was making a guest appearance in goal.
Although Ian will happily walk from John O Groats to Land's End, especially for charity as that’s Ian’s great thing in life, helping others, he "doesn't do running" so he would only play as a 'keeper.
Anyway our defence was split wide open and the opposing striker was through on goal with the aforementioned Mr Botham slowly advancing. As all good coaches do, I decide that some advice was of the essence.
So, thinking about how Peter Shilton dealt with these situations, I shouted,
"Make yourself big!"
To which he looked across and shouted back,
"How big do you want me to be!!" (I have missed out the expletives!)
Needless to say, the opposing player walked the ball into the vacant net as Beef stood there chortling.
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