GunnerBill Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 A kinda nice Bills related Sunday evening (well it is over here) story I thought I'd share with TBD. I'm a semi-pro soccer coach in the UK and I'm the Assistant Head Coach of a team for whom the soccer season finished on Saturday. Our intention at the start of the season was to win the league and gain promotion to the level above, however, our two biggest competitors have a budget that way outstrips ours. Despite this for 36 games of a 38 game season our destiny was in our own hands, until we lost last week to one of the two big budget teams that left us third out of 20, but behind both the big budget teams going into our final two games. We went into Saturday needing to win our game and needing the two above us to fail to win. However, despite winning 3-0 the other two won as well and we finished an incredible season with a record points tally and a record goals tally for any team ever to not get promoted from our league in 3rd position. 1 point behind the champions. When we got back into our locker room the players were obviously devastated having slogged their guts out for 7 months and 38 games, especially as the flooding here over Christmas meant a fixture backlog that left us playing our final 12 games in 25 days (and these are part time players who play around their other jobs). The Head Coach started his end of season speech but was pretty emotional and a bit lost for words so I took over to help him out... and you know in that moment when I really didn't know what to say one thing came into my head.... "Fight on my men Sir Andrew said, A little I'm hurt but not yet slain, I'll just lay down and bleed a while, And then I'll rise and fight again." So I told them the story of the 1990 Buffalo Bills, the missed kick and Marv's famous poem. The reaction to it was pretty amazing and if we can respond from the adversity and disappointment the way Marv's Bills did we will be very well served next season. And for Marv to remember that obscure old Scottish poem in such a moment of utter professional devastation I think tells you something about the genius of the man. EDIT: And one of our players who said he started watching a few NFL games for the first time last season but didn't have a team told me he is going to root for the Bills from now on..... I did advise him of the last 14 years but he seems pretty set..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOBILLS78 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Thanks for sharing! Cool story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockinon Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Very nice. I always thought Marv was a great motivator. That quote is pretty well known around here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garion Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Great story thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4BillsintheBurgh Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Congrats on your season, thanks for the story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2020 Our Year For Sure Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 The edit is my favorite part lol. Thank you for sharing this, and well done Coach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machine gun kelly Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 What a great story. Thanks for sharing and how appropriate. You need to get that young man to a game at the Ralph. He'll get hooked for life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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