Lots of excited nurses waiting to meet footballers. A few parents excited that something out of the normal routine is going to occur. One lovely conversation with a very excited young lad (maybe about eleven) in a wheelchair and Villa shirt who I bumped into and had the pleasure of helping to create a picture with as he was alone in the art room and until I blundered in by mistake could not reach the equipment he wanted to make it. He is lucky I could reach it as the shelf was high and I am not the tallest of blokes! That same youngster ended up having a great day as he was old enough and healthy enough to appreciate the visit more than the younger and more seriously disabled kids. The players all made a big fuss of him. Lots of young footballers with the best of intentions but slightly sociably inept as to what they were supposed to do or so say. Samba being bigger than the King Kong statue that used to be in town. I would not want to fall out with that man. Also, Alan Hutton was really nice but if push came to shove he had an air of menace that would put me off wanting to fight him. Me deliberately muscling in on a photo my daughter and grandson were having taken with the players. Me returning home to be accused by both my wife and son of 'photo bombing' a picture with Gabby that is on his Instagram. Having been shown the picture I think the rather vacant look on my face shows I had just wandered unknowingly into shot. What seemed to be a club PR woman and some woman connected to SKY along with a cameraman trying to organize the players to do what they wanted them to do. They failed to do so even more spectacularly than Remi Garde. And finally the players,who lined up to sign Acorns prepared scrolls for all of the children to go up on the walls of their rooms. My grandson aside, I took the liberty of getting some autographs for my teenage son. Which brings me to John Terry. I asked all of the players to sign an autograph for 'Daniel'. Most of them just scribbled their name, as is the norm but John Terry wrote 'To Daniel Merry Christmas, John Terry'. He also held up the whole PR shebang, much to the annoyance of the people in suits with their hands and ears glued to mobile phones and much looking at the time and tutting by making sure he spoke to every member of staff, every parent and spending time with every single child. So speak as you find and all that, he will do for me. I thought he was class.
