More Than A Game

Chapter 7

The warm rays of sunlight soaked into my skin as I entered the main building of Adelaide Oval. I nervously wiped my hands on the front of my blue short dress, anticipating what I would possibly encounter within the next few hours of being here. I found myself standing in front of a middle aged woman busily typing away on her laptop as I turned the corner.

"Ah good morning madam, how may I help you today?" her soft and fragile voice vibrated across the room as she began to slowly shut the lid of her laptop.

"Erhm hi, I'm Carmen Richwald. I was wondering if you know where I could find Chad Wingard? He invited me to watch a training session; I'm actually a friend of his." I held my breath, and crossed my fingers hoping she would somehow find a way to believe me.

The woman looked at me rather suspiciously, as if I was threatening to steal something. I understood why she might have felt self conscious about letting me go into the training session. All the time, you'd hear of various stories showing many girls who would go to extreme lengths just to get a glimpse of guys like Chad.

Surprisingly, the woman agreed to let me go through to the actual oval from which I could see several blurs of blue and white moving around within the distance. I turned around to thank her, realising she was staring at me in an eerily way. I moved as quickly as I could to escape the woman glance, walking towards one of the seats in the front row. The moment I sat, I could see Chad running towards me, putting a huge smile on my face.

"Hey, you made it. I thought you weren't going to be interested enough in watching a bunch of sweaty guys running around."

"Well, when you put it that way, I wouldn't miss it for the world, especially considering you'd be one of the bunches to be running around."

"Welcome to Adelaide Oval Miss Richwald. I don't mean to sound stuck up but this has to be one of the best places to play football." He grinned brightly, grasping my hand tightly. I was once again, feeling a little nervous, as if I had butterflies. I was taken down the stairs while being rushed across to the other side of the oval. I stopped to face an array of Port Adelaide uniforms vibrantly flashing under the sunlight.

"Hey boys. We have a visitor today. This is Carmen Richwald, currently a journalist student at Bridgetonne, one of the top universities in Australia." I could hear a couple of murmurs and oohs within the crowd and wondered if my cheeks were becoming warm because of the weather or if I was blushing a little too much. Looking around, every one of the boys were smiling, giving the oval a sense of excitement.

"Thank you for the introduction Chad. I just wanna say it is an honour to be in the presence of every one of you all. Port Adelaide is a great football team." I spoke trying to sound as confidently as I examined each of the other players' faces.

"We feel the same way about having you here. It wasn't until Chad mentioned that you were hoping to be a sports journalist, we thought it would be best to have you at our training session this afternoon." A tall, middle aged man known as Ken Hinkley stepped in and spoke up, who I just remembered was actually the head coach of Port Adelaide. I casually shook his hand to once again, sincerely thank him for allowing me to be here this morning. Without a warning, loud shouts could be heard from the opposite end of the oval. I turned around, wondering who was causing chaos.

"Ken, Ken." The breathless tone was getting louder as the figure was moving more closely towards us. Each time, he looked as if he was changing pace, tripping a couple of times along the way.

"I'm sorry I'm late Ken. I was caught up with a couple of things." It wasn't until a couple of moments later; I could see what the figure actually looked like. He was actually quite tall, had a solid build and combed over ashy blonde hair.