Cecil Martin visits The Bournemouth Bobcats

Today I have a different kind of post for you all, which I really feel passionate about as it's a really big achievement for myself and my husband.

Every Sunday evening during the American Football season Bradley and I sit down to watch the game. I am a complete novice when it comes to all things sport related but Bradley is very interested in following the sport and I must confess that during the season I became really interested too. One Sunday, we were watching the game and I decided to tweet one of the presenters, ex Philadelphia Eagles fullback, Cecil Martin. I didn't expect to hear anything back as I thought he must have hundreds of people tweeting him during the show, but to my complete surprise he responded! The next time he was on the show I tweeted him again and he read my name out! We then started a conversation via twitter about how we were fans of the show and that we would love to meet him one day. Then, to our complete surprise he invited us to travel to London and meet him before he went to record the show! Of course we were extremely excited about this and couldn't wait for the day to arrive.

Fortunately one of my work colleagues plays for our local team The Bournemouth Bobcats
and when we met Cecil, we talked about the team and how it would be great if he could conduct a training session with their youth team. Cecil had been planning on doing a UK tour of clubs and schools during the off season to promote American Football in this country and to teach children about the importance of team work and working hard in school to achieve your goals and gain valuable life skills, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get something organised!

Once we were back home, we thought about it more and decided to get the ball rolling. Bradley got in touch with the team and corresponded with them and Cecil turning the idea into reality. From December last year to now, the event has been in progress, sending messages between ourselves, Cecil and the club and also to publisise the event in our local paper The Bournemouth Echo.

 Soon enough the event was upon us! The actual event took place on Monday 8th April but Cecil travelled down on Sunday 7th to meet us again and to speak to the coaches who run the club.

We all met up at a local restaurant called Rhumbar and chatted about what was going to happen the next day.

The training session was an absolute success. All the Bobcats youth team showed up and even a few new faces arrived who will hopefully join the team. Firstly there was a training session outside which was followed by an inspirational talk in the clubhouse. Cecil even got to welcome the teams new mascot the Bournemouth Bobcat which was designed and created by the local Bournemouth Arts Institute students.

Here are a few snapshots from the training session:

Bradley, Cecil & I

I feel so privelidged to have been a part of this event and helping to enable it to happen. Seeing the youth team hang on every word Cecil was saying and hopefully teaching them about the importance of being a team and making the right decisions in life.

I cannot thank Cecil enough for taking the time to visit us. Personally, I feel a huge sense of pride in being able to give something back to the community and it has now made me want to do more to support my local team in any way I can.

Hopefully this will not be the end of the relationship that Cecil and the club have created and he will be able to return to conduct more training sessions in the future.