The Grass Roots Show was finally upon us and having hit all of our deadlines set two months prior to the show, we were ready for the F2 Launch. Admittedly stressed, but ready.
We travelled up to the NEC Birmingham Exhibition Centre the evening before the show. Arriving with The Soccer Hub Team (our coaching academy), we made sure everything was in place. Having a big area at the show made things really easy for The Soccer Hub & The F2, to maximise our time at the show.
Jeremy & I were performing our new routine, running coaching sessions and signing autographs. The Soccer Hub Team were kept busy during the whole event including raffling off a signed Messi shirt that I managed to get on our last job together. We were a little nervous about performing our new routine because it had never been seen live before. In fact we didn't even have time to film it and watch it back to make sure we are happy with everything. But we knew that once we performed it a few times it would get easier and our moves would get tighter with every show.
 |
With the help of close friend John Rooney manning the DVD sales area we were free to perform as and when we wanted. We were happy to see how many people gathered around our area for The new F2 show. Having choreographed something totally different than anything there has ever been before the reaction was fantastic. It seemed like if we wasn't performing our new show we were signing our DVDs, photo cards, footballs etc. It was great to see such positive enthusiastic young people at the show. A big plus for me was to see some family's from previous years back at the show and as we all grow up it's brilliant to see some of the Grass Roots regulars progress & improvements with their tricks and skills.
 |
| Our weekly tutorial |
It was great to see lots of young children coming up to us and asking us to sign our skills section in the Match Of The Day Magazine
Having taken part in various different sessions like Blind Football and PowerchairFootball, we realised how much skill and talent goes into what is the same game but just played in different ways. For example with the Blind Football it was incredible how you can be so guided by only using your ears. Using footballs with bells inside I still had no idea of which direction the ball was going in or what distance the ball was away from me!! Then we had one of England's Blind Footballs best Players dribbling around the pitch like Ronaldo! It was just unbelievable to see how good people can be at this. I'm guessing that we neglect our hearing just because it's more convenient for us to use our eye sight. Everyone should experience this as it is really amazing.
 |
| Both of us totally lost on the Football Pitch! |
As for the Power Chair Football. I was totally & utterly rubbish at this. Jeremy was slightly better but still amazingly poor! These Chairs move around 9 mph but there acceleration at the start is so fast. I couldn't get use to the extremely sensitive controls and also the positioning and judging where the ball was going to go. Again really hard to do but there was people on the same pitch making it look so easy to do!
Within our packed schedule we were asked to judge a Football Freestyle Competition. With many top class freestylers performing in front of us we had some really tough decisions to make. In the final was two top outstanding freestylers John Whetton & Andrew Henderson. Both guys didn't hold back during the battle and they both pulled out what I can only describe as insane tricks! With Andrew nailing all of his tricks he slightly edged the final. But no hard feelings on John as his skills were amazing too.
 |
Andrew Henderson the Football Freestyle Competition Winner |
Over all the show was a huge success and The F2 has been launched and with dvd orders coming in all the time we are sure the perfect double act has been formed. Now we feel ready to take over the world!!!
