You don’t mess with it if you value your life.
We’re creatures of habit, but when it comes to where we sit in the dressing room, these habits really aren’t our choice.
It takes a lot to earn a spot in that dressing room, and if you’re thinking about moving onto another one, you’d better have the walk, and Jesus you’d better have some talk to back it up.
If not, just sit the f*ck back in your box.
You walk in that dressing room door and you sit down where you’re meant to sit down, and you get on with it, because it’s not like you’ve even thought about changing your ways.
All dressing rooms are different, but they’re the same really. There are spots for the leaders, your elder statesmen, there are spots for the cocky players in their prime, a spot for the quiet leaders, the diehards, there are spots for the perennial stragglers, for the future stars who know it, and believe it or not there’s a spot for those that don’t know it either.
There are eight groups of you – and we’re starting from the bottom.
1. Just in the door
You take your place just inside the door, because you are literally just in the door.
You’re a youngster, in your last year of minor. The minor manager told you and a few of your teammates to start showing your face at senior training, so that’s what you do.
You walk in that door at 6:54 of a Wednesday evening, your first day in with the big boys, thinking you’re early, and you wonder why everybody else has the gear on and is ready to go and looking at you.
This is the big time now, son, you’ll never be later than 6:45 again.
You’re not picky, You take the seat most readily available to you, beside the other minors.
After training, you get into the dressing room, you grab your bag, you don’t even take your boots off.
Haven’t even dreamed of having a shower yet.
2. Young lad with a few scalps taken
You’ve moved on from the door spot. You fought like a wounded dog to get out of there, and against all the odds, you made it, and boy doesn’t it feel amazing?
With a few challenge match appearances to your name, your reputation is growing, but that time you knocked the captain on his arse with a shoulder, that was the real deal breaker.
Mixing it with the big boys now, your Championship debut is sooner, rather than later.
3. The quiet leader
Tough as nails on the field of play this fella. He commands respect around the club, and this transcends to the dressing room.
His spot is sacred, and nobody would even dream of taking it. He won’t say much, but he doesn’t really need to.
It takes a lot to earn this spot, an awful bloody lot.
Don’t even dream of it, you.
4. The charismatic straggler
What you don’t have in style and grace, you makes up for with your personality.
You know that a top drawer changing room spot is out of your reach for your ability, so you become the life and soul of the team.
Going into a training session, your aim is more to crack a few jokes, to be the centre of attention, and to chat with every other player at training.
You organise team-bonding sessions, you’re the first to post and to reply in the team WhatsApp, and you come into your own in the showers.
You make a habit out of not bringing any shower gel, but using someone else’s, and somehow making them feel like you’ve done them a favour by using it.
An expert at the rattling dig, but it’s never too personal. Your seat isn’t actually set in stone, but if somebody takes it off you, you’ll talk him back to the door seat.
Then you relax into the middle of the back row, where you belong.
Nobody wants the door seat
5. County boy
You barely ever show up to training, but sure you’re away with the county and fitter than any of the boys here.
You’ve put the club on the map, and many of your club mates look up to you, and because of this there’s always a seat saved for you at training and for games.
Even though you’re rarely present, your seat is never touched, which makes you wonder, do the boys leave it, even when you’re not there?
The team waterboy ensures everything is in order, and everything is pristine for you, which makes your relationship with him just a tad awkward.
6. Dirty corner back
Your days are numbered in the senior dressing room, and the dreaded drop down through the grades to junior is on the horizon.
You’re a fond believer in the use of gamesmanship on the field of play, but you’d be no stranger to the dark arts of the dressing room, either.
You know the cocky youngsters are coming for your place, so you arrive a bit earlier for training to ensure your spot.
You never bring shower gel, and always request ‘suds’ off a teammate.
You’re dirty on the field, and you’re a messy f*cker off it too. You abandon ship for the shower, and your boots, runners, tracksuits and socks nearly take up the whole dressing room.
7. Cripple Joe
If there’s any positive to take from being injured, you don’t have to fight for a seat. You hog the physio table for every breath you take within the four walls.
If it’s not your hamstring, it’s your back.
8. Loudmouth goalie
Last but not least.
You’d talk the hind legs off a table. Love the craic in the dressing room, but when it’s game time, you turn into a possessed control freak.
You’ve lots of similarities with number 4, and ye’re actually a bit of an iconic duo around the club, and in the dressing room, where you sit beside each other.
Bossing it.
