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The Veteran-Rookie

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39 year old English/Portuguese Withdrawn Striker/Attacking Midfielder can also play as a striker or as a defensive midfielder protecting defence. Naturally left footed 1m75cm seeking a contract playing in the Spanish Tercera Division.

In June 2014 I achieved the fitness levels required to begin my first preseason with a professional football training camp in with players from the English professional divisions including the Premier League and U21 internationals.

I had the opportunity to continue my preseason preparations in July and August 2014 in the Spanish 4th Division (Tercera División) with 2 clubs: El Cotillo and Las Zocas. I played my first competitive match at that level vs Raqui San Isidro in the Charco del Pino tournament in Tenerife before being invited to Morocco for trials in the 2nd Division.

The biggest highlight was a trial match invitation with Kenitra Athletic of the Moroccan Premier League in December 2014.

I am now in the UK trying to raise funds to take my Level 2 coaching qualification with the English Football Association and find support to sustain one more attempt to recover the fitness levels required to return to the Tercera Division for the 2015/16 season.

I can be contacted on +447850632736 or [email redacted].uk



June 2015:

Less than 6 weeks to get myself in the best shape I can to present myself to clubs for trials in the Summer.

I raised enough to pay for the first 3 weeks of personal training with Ultimate Performance but still need to raise another £1800 by the first week in July to continue training with the personal traininer.  Can you help donate towards this?

I'm hoping I can combine training at Pure Sports Medicine once a week doing a lactate threshold running test which costs around £100 a pop. So that's another £600 I need to raise, or rather, £100 a week while I'm in London.

Crashing on a friends sofa isn't ideal for recovery but I'm just happy to be able to finally get back to training with professionals. I have a travel card for the month all paid up so hopefully can include some sessions at Dagenham & Redbridge as well as getting around to different football playing and coaching opportunities while I'm here - in particular it would be great to start my FA Level 2 coaching course, cost of around £300.

Imagining things in the future, I would really like to be able to get the Canaries sport media channels to feature my mission and raise awareness of my arrival with the clubs and managers.  I need 75euros per feature and estimate I would need 2 or 3 articles published per channel as soon as possible... ideally an initial introduction article and two follow up features/interviews.

Also hoping to be able to afford to get special treatment on my sinus problem using intranasal ozone at IntegralMed with Dr Jorge Torres who is based in Tenerife.  I expect to get out to the island by the end of July depending on how training goes here and I think I'd need about 3 or 4 weeks of treatment. Being able to breath properly will make a huge difference to my life in general, not just my fitness and performance on the pitch.  

Here's a video of Dr Torres speaking about how he helped me overcome knee and back injuries to keep progressing:



I also need to get my trapped wisdom teeth extracted and have already had moulds taken in Tangier to fit braces which will hopefully move my teeth over the course 12-18 months to allow access to the trapped teeth for extraction and also replace a worrying broken front tooth issue I've had for a few years.

This journey wasn't possible without the help of donations and some incredibly generous gestures, so here's to everyone who took action to help me in whatever what they could.

Thank you so much!

BACKSTORY:

In April 2011 I had extensive knee surgery, I weighed 117kgs (almost 18stone) and was suffering from a lower back injury.

I was in pain every day and decided after my operation that I would lose 40kilos and return to playing the sport I loved. 2 and a half years later, in October 2013, I achieved my weight loss goal and weighed in at 77kgs.



In November 2013 I achieved the fitness levels required to be accepted into an elite professional football (soccer) training camp at the Tenerife Top Training T3 facility in June 2014 along with young British players from semi-pro clubs right up to the Premier League including international level!



IIn July 2014 I began my first professional preseason training with a Spanish Tercera division club (4th tier), CD El Cotillo, on the island of Fuerteventura.

In August 2014 I also trained with another Tercera Division club (UD Las Zocas) on the island of Tenerife and was selected to play my first match, vs Raqui San Isidro (where Barcelona player Pedro came from).

By this time I wasn't earning any income from work and got to the point where I had to give up the dream or start begging for help. I set up a donation website which actually helped a lot but never quite enough to cover basic survival.

Despite previous donations, I wasn't able to raise enough funds to cover my living costs during trials in Tenerife so I had to end my opportunity at UD Las Zocas. I simply couldn't do it without help which was hard to take at the time...

In mid-August 2014 as my preseason training in the Spanish Tercera Division was coming to an end, I was offered trials in Morocco's second division GNF2 organised by a CAF coach/agent, including temporary accommodation on his sofa.

My first trial in Morocco's 2nd division was with Wydad Temara on the 21st August and they invited me to return to continue with them the following week. My agent warned me that they may change their mind when they realised I was 38, which they did. I was the best player on the pitch, but that doesn't count when they see the 1976 date of birth. Lesson learnt - make sure they know my age in ADVANCE!

End of August 2014 my agent then received an offer from CJK Khouribga - a professional FUTSAL team in Morocco, previous national champions who came second in the championship last season, but football is where my dream is focused, for now anyway.

Early September we had to decline a trial invitation from Moroccan 2nd Division club JSM Laâyoune due to lack of funds for flight and accommodation. That was another demoralising blow to deal with but as the saying goes - take the hits and keep moving forward. 

There was great news when my agent confirmed professional trials for December 2014 with two big clubs in Morocco but it would mean hardship surviving in Morocco until then. 

The clubs confirmed were: Kenitra Athletic Club KAC - 1st Division and Racing Athletic Casablanca RAC - 2nd Division.

I had been struggling with the same issue of lack of funds and balancing on the edge of giving up or fighting to keep it going since September 19th.

I was invited to trial at AD Ceuta on the 29th October. They play in the Spanish Tercera Division.  I didn't have the means to cover transport or accommodation... I have written to them for another opportunity. 

November 2014 saw me fall ill and also my dental issues intensified.  I put on weight, wasn't able to train or eat well and was considering the end of this adventure.  But then an anonymous donor stepped up with a huge amount to try to help me recover the situation in time for December/January trials.    Whilst it wouldn't be enough to cover costs of attending trials, it certainly helped to cover the solutions for a lot of problems, including my health. 

I managed to arrange travel to Tenerife mid November to meet with and pay the film company to release my video footage from the professional football camp that took place in June 2014.  With this, I can hopefully put together a short showreel of me in action to send to clubs... if I can find someone to help edit it.

I then made it to Fuerteventura on the 18th November to retrieve the clothes and training kit I had left behind when I was training with CD El Cotillo... the luggage excess cost an extra 200euros and by that time I only had about £100GBP left but an anonymous donation helped save that situation.

Next stop was London... coming to the end of the November, donations and support were very thin on the ground, I ended up a bit stranded at my temporary accommodation with no transport to get bags into my storage unit in Ealing... again, could only ask for help and hope someone was listening... and someone was!  Thanks to my friends Jose, Rueben and Irantzu I was able to centralise all my stuff back into my storage unit, sell and give away some bits to lighten the load and return to Tangier to begin December 2014 with a new push towards improving fitness. 

Easier said than done with no financial support for the whole of December and coping with sinus and teeth problems. To make matters worse, it got so cold in the apartment you could see your breath in the air. Back pain got worse and cramps from the cold. With no access to gym and just relying on shared food, motivation took a hit. I couldn't see how I would be able to prepare for professional trials in Morocco any longer and just decided to focus on finally trying to publish some of the footage of my training camp experience and the interviews of those involved. At the very least, I have a story to tell and can try to take the positives from failing to get as far as I'd hoped.

December came and went and 2015 began with realisiing the personal cost of failing to raise enough funds to get to those pro trials.  I'm not saying I would have got signed, but it would have been nice to try and give it a go.  It was a slow painful death since the highs of the Summer when things looked hopeful.  Knowing I had the opportunity to trial at a 1st division club in Morocco and couldn't even afford the train fare isn't exactly how I dreamed it would turn out. So the time came to admit defeat for that chapter and think about 2015.

January 2015: The goal was still to play football, find a team to be part of and perhaps also coach but I was still pretty bitter about not having the support to get to the trials in December and allowed a negative mindset to let excuses dominate and slowly watched fitness and health deteriorate. Perhaps a deliberate subconscious sabotage.

I was sharing an apartment in Tangier with players from the 2012 football charity project I started in Morocco, but it was still an awful situation with no finance and no support locally. Pretty excluded and isolated, I trained at home in the day and outside at night mainly - again, very poor mindset allowed to creep in and dominate thoughts. When I started to train harder, mentally I improved and wanted to fight again. First thought was I have to get out of this uncomfortable comfort zone and go where I have the best chance of playing at a high level. Back to the original place, the Canary Islands league of the Spanish Tercera Division - back to the original #MisionTerceraCanaria. So I began training better and slowly working through editing and publishing videos on my YouTube channel myself. One at a time with my eyes fixed on raising funds to get on a flight even if I arrive homeless with just my kit, better than being stuck at in a cycle in a country I don't belong. In Tenerife is where I rehabilitated from injuries to achieve the life change in the first place and it's where I have my doctor, physio and also local people actively supporting my journey. I have better opportunities to play, there are a lot of teams on the island. I speak the language fluently so finding work will also be infinitely easier to do than in Morocco.

On the 31st January, just as I thought I'd be stuck in Morocco until March, an anonymous donor stepped in with a small donation enough to allow me to book a flight - so next stop, Tenerife, a new chapter begins.

On the 5th February, I flew into Tenerife North airport thanks to a friend's donation.

Although most of the people and contacts I have are all in the South of the Island, I started in the North where I found cheap accommodation.  Unfortunately it was the coldest winter in 10 years in La Laguna and I caught a bad case of the flu that knocked me out for a couple weeks. In that time I approached CD Laguna, a club in the Tercera Division, but was rejected by the President without seeing me train or play based on my age... probably not a good idea turning up with the flu, I wasn't at my best.

After my accommodation budget ran out, I found a friend in the South who let me crash on his sofa and offered it as a long term solution: 4 months for €350 while I train, job-hunt and find a club. Unfortunately I had no means of survival in the meantime without any more donations... then out of the blue, another friend offered to pay for my flight back to London as part of a surprise on my cousin's 40th birthday... another friend offered their sofa for me and I found myself back on my home town at the end of February 2015...

March 2015:

Living out of bags and sleeping on a sofa wasn't ideal but it was stable. With a little help from friends with Oyster card top-ups, I was able to get around enough to train, get some football playing and coaching time done as well as refereeing a women's football match for the Football Beyond Borders charity... and a massive bonus that they arranged for a free FA level 1 coaching qualification for me including emergency 1st aid and safeguarding children! So I obviously dedicated the whole of March to supporting their organisation and coaching and inspiring their youth and staff in any way I could. Dagenham & Redbridge FC were very supportive inviting me to match days and offering Physio help but they're busy with their own players and finding time for me isn't easy. In the end March proved to be an optimistic month, even enjoyed a great birthday with close friends which hasn't happened in a while. I went into April without the finance I hoped for but with peace of mind and under no illusions.

APRIL 2015:

So it all boiled down to 3 months from beginning April to get fighting fit. This is my last shot at getting signed to a Tercera Division club. With zero funds available to put towards training/treatment/diet, it was a mountain to climb. But this is my choice, my dream. No one owes me anything and no one can do this for me. Simply a case of trying my best, whatever the outcome.

A massive boost was offers of free accommodation in London during my training + the promise of some business consulting work on top, it seemed I might have finally been able to self-fund this last push.  But they proved false dawns.  Job offers from the charity I was helping didn't materialise and The Gunners Pub couldn't afford to follow through with the planned exchange of work for funding my training.  Seemed a doomed situation. 

Positives:  little bits of help from other friends kept me in survival mode but a big plus was being invited to build on my training at Dagenham & Redbridge FC which is quite a highlight for me personally to get treatment from professional physio and being supported by their Sports Science guys.  Also, an old property landlord friend of mine helped with temporary accommodation on his plumber's sofa!  Not idea but that's survival. 

Fitness levels were poor, it would have needed a miraculous level of support to afford a healthy diet/nutrition regime and somewhere stable to sleep and recover.  All roads seemed to be pointing me back to Morocco, the only place I had secure accommodation, a bed and help with shared food budget.  

May 2015

A crazy month of insane coincidences and a lot of instability moving from place to place trying not to give up hope despite the disappointments of March/April.

Despite not having a clue how, I was still hoping I could find a way to afford personal training at UP Fitness + food/nutrition budget and + travel/accommodation. I couldn't afford to keep the Bikram Yoga going and by the 12th May, couldn't afford travel to Dagenham & Redbridge for training and Physio support. My good friends in Bournemouth tried to help me by offering me some respite at their house but I couldn't settle there and felt the whole dream slipping away even further...

I made the decision to come back to London and hold hope that I could somehow scrape the funds together to be able to pay the only people I believed could provide the most effective training package for me...

Support me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jinho_J10

www.youtube.com/MisionTerceraCanaria

https://m.facebook.com/Jinho.J10

Donations 

  • Irantzu Lauhingfan
    • €150 (Offline)
    • 9 yrs
  • Timothy Jahnigen
    • €56 (Offline)
    • 9 yrs
  • Kairen Smith
    • €135 (Offline)
    • 9 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • €67 (Offline)
    • 9 yrs
  • Steven Roleio-Doe
    • €140 (Offline)
    • 9 yrs

Organizer

George Parolalista
Organizer

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