In early 2008 I did my first long tour playing drums for a guitar player I grew up listening to. It was an incredible experience and I got to see close to 20 countries, if not more. It was then when I went to my dream country aka The Netherlands, but even though the trip was an utter success, I was kinda bummed because it hand’t taken me to London. Fast forward close to a year, we were back on the road and this time London was on the route, and so were about 10 different cities in England and Scotland. It was incredible.
A couple of days ago I was going through my laptop and I found a playlist that I had created for that part of the trip. It included songs by The Clash, The Buzzcocks, David Bowie, Editors (with whom I have a crazy story for another day), Jamiroquai and Bloc Party among many. Bloc Party was on heavy rotation for me at that time and even though Silent Alarm is a great album, I always kinda just listened to “I Still Remember” from the album Weekend in the City.
The moment I found that playlist my FotMob app went off letting me know that the NWSL final was starting in 15 min. I am not really a fan of the NWSL and the only matches I watched this year were of Bay FC to see if Jen Beattie was playing. But this match was important to me for 2 reasons.
One of them was hoping that Rafa would get a trophy, after an UNREAL start of the season and specially due to her getting injured and spending so much time on the sidelines. I Still Remember Rafa, all the time, and I hoped she would get a winner’s medal and she did.
Another reason was to see Marta win a trophy, and again: she did.
A bonus was watching Jen get her recognition for all the hard work she does and receiving the 2024 Lauren Holiday Impact Award. It’s a big deal and I love that for her because she has sadly not gotten the minutes she deserves and I don’t mean that because of who she “used to be” but because she still has the brain, the legs and the stamina.
I think some Arsenal fans and AWFC fans have this blind love for the club and think that we are the end all be all of football. We aren’t. Life takes many turns for many people and sometimes the best thing that can happen to some players is leaving Arsenal. And that’s ok and this is something everyone can think about, should they choose to, or not. But what we cannot forget is that no matter how much you love a club, if you don’t love other things about it aka the manager, or whomever, then working in that situation is really bad.
Going back to the tour I did, when we went to England. I remember how incredible it was to work with that guitar player. The crew was amazing, etc but I didn’t really gel with the bass player and it was actually pretty painful most shows were I think I told myself I was enjoying it out of gratitude more than actually enjoying it truly and authentically at that moment in time. And that weird dynamic made me consider my future.
Anyway, I hope you’re all doing well. Miss writing but I also have to tell you that I’ve been more productive than I have been in about 10 months and I made it a point to spend the same time that I assigned to writing this blog to other things and it has been a game changer.
I still remember this blog, and you remember how corny I am. Much love.
d ❤
THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
You can listen to my music HERE
A very subjective look into AWFC 
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