No 8. Link-up Player: Connections & Communications.
Purpose: Helps you to play well as a Team (biological, physical, emotional).
Our health ultimately depends upon the connections and communications we make.
At a biological level, the interactions between our cells, via both the nervous and hormonal systems, play an important role in how well our bodies perform.
Even our genes communicate with each other creating “epigenetic” changes that can have major impacts upon our health.
“Wee” Willie Johnston, was a winger at Albion and Glasgow Rangers, who became a legend at both clubs in the 1970’s. Small in stature, but lightning quick, he let his feet do the talking on the pitch – well most of the time anyway.
Willie himself tells the story of how he negotiated buying a greenhouse from a fan standing on the terraces. Over the course of a number of matches and quite a few corners he was able to get it at a much discounted price!
Before another corner during a game he was seen to take a swig of a fan’s beer.
Then there was the time he “mooned” in front of the Seattle Sounders bench after scoring a goal, the playful kick he gave a ref on the bottom, the piggy-back ride from a Notts County player, the streak across the road outside the Hawthorn’s stadium for a bet, only to find his team-mates had locked him out, and the famous wearing of a clown’s mask during the pre-match warm up on the pitch.
It wasn’t all jovial frivolity for Willie, he had a mean streak in him as well, sent off over 20 times and on one occasion in America, had to be ordered off the pitch by a police officer at gunpoint.
However, most people will remember him as the Scottish football player who was sent home in disgrace from the 1978 Argentinian World Cup for failing a drugs test.
The drug in question was Fencamfamin, a stimulant found in a cold remedy called Reactivan, which he took for his hay-fever. To this day, Willie still claims this was just an innocent miscommunication, not realising he was taking a banned substance.
Another miscommunication was made a few years later when Willie received a phone call from a reporter in Vancouver during the 1988 Olympics, asking him if it was true he was related to the disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson, to which Willie’s witty reply was;
“well my father had a bike but I don’t know how he made it over to Canada!”
Of course the fan’s loved him, he was a maverick character in a tragicomedy and we couldn’t get enough of it.
“Willie was a decent player, but much more than that, he was a real bloke who lived a real life,…People identified with him. He was perhap’s, the last cult hero of that ilk. Everyone since has been more aloof, harder to engage with.” Steve Sant – Cult Heroes.
Every team needs a player they can rely on to communicate with the supporters, make connections and establish a good rapport with others in the game of life.
Goal Scored: Better connections & communications (biological, physical, emotional) for health.⚽⚽⚽