<![CDATA[Simulation Soccer League

<![CDATA[A Narrative Bio: Part IV]]> https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/showthread.php?tid=10010 Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:28:21 +0100 Jack_Pow]]> https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/showthread.php?tid=10010 [Part IV: Home]

[Image: IV-1.png]

Football had always been my escape after my father died. The one thing where all of my worries and fears disappeared, at least for the next ninety minutes. I never thought I’d reach a point where I wanted to escape football too. What do you turn to when it’s all you have left? Everything up to now had been for this. Everything I’d done and the people I’d lost. I carried on working hard in training, but there was something missing. That spark had gone, like someone had quietly blown out a candle and left the room in darkness. And I would become very acquainted with darkness over the course of the season. You can be as fit as you physically can, but if your mind is elsewhere, it doesn’t matter.

Something my mum spoke about a lot when I was growing up was the power of the mind. She always believed there was more to life than what was immediately visible to us. She talked a lot about the power of the mind, and about focusing on what you wanted rather than what you feared. After losing my dad she lost some of her own spark for a while. The one good thing was that I could see the life and colour returning to her. But I felt like I was losing mine.

We were 4-0 down away to Port Royal in our first game of the second half of the season. As a team we’d stopped doing everything that was working for us before. We seemed to struggle to gain any sort of control of games. It felt like we were on the back-foot straight from the first whistle. I remember how frustrated I was feeling, I mean the whole team was to be fair, but I reminded me of a phrase my mum often said in life, to the point where she had a canvas print of it on her bedroom wall.

It was:
“What you think, you create. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you become.”

All I remember thinking was that I didn’t want to feel like this any more, I didn’t want to lose something else I loved. This was something that had happened too much.

Geronimo had the ball down the left running towards the goal. I was urging the ball to come to me, really visualising it in my mind. He crossed the ball...blocked. But I kept the thought in there, thinking about every detail – the trajectory of the ball, the sound of the crowd increasing in volume as their excitement built, the feel of the ball connecting with my boot as I powered it into the net with my left foot. Except I wasn’t just thinking it, it happened, exactly as I’d pictured it.

We didn’t win the game, but the lessons I learnt that day will stick with me forever.

It was actually outside of football where I began to feel happiest. One morning on my way to training, I saw an old camera for sale in a used goods store. It was the same camera Liv had. She would pop up in my mind from time to time. I’d wonder if she was okay, what she was doing, if she was still into all the same music and films. I wondered if she ever thought about me. We agreed we wouldn’t stay in touch when she left for London. She said that chapter of our lives was over and we both needed to start the next chapter on our own.

I bought the camera. I started taking it out more and more, it really helped me during those tough months. Just going out with nothing but the camera, not knowing what I’d see. Slowly, I understood why Liv had always carried hers. Just being able to stop and capture a moment of a father giving his daughter a stick of candyfloss when the local fair was on, her face lighting up with a big smile. Or the moment a bird landed on a mailbox with a worm hanging out its mouth, ready to fly back to its nest and feed its young. My mum had met someone, and he started spending more and more time with us. We’d take trips up to the lake and have picnics in the sun. I could see she was happy again. I got a photo of them holding hands looking out into the sunset.

There is more to life than the bad things that happen. It’s easy to lose focus of that. You need the bad things to really appreciate the good. And there are so many good things when you slow down and notice them.

It was the last game of the season, and I’d begun to feel myself again. Stockholm can be a harsh place, especially during winter, but my thoughts for the first time moved on to what was next. It’s funny that I’d never really thought about it until now. Maybe it was because I felt like Sweden was my home now? The thing about home, though, is that it doesn’t have to be a particular place. Home, to me, is a state of mind. A feeling or an emotion. The people around you who you love and who love you. They’re also home. Our friends, they’re home. Those we have to let go, they’re also home, even if that might sound odd. All I know, is that I felt a clarity that I hadn’t felt in a long time, and for the first time in months, I was excited about what came next.

It was our final game of the season against Sydney, and the last time I’d pull on the Stockholm colours. I remember thinking what a nice day it was. The sun was out, but there was a cool breeze, which made the playing conditions perfect. Five minutes in, the ball fell to me just outside the centre-circle. I felt light. Moving felt effortless. Arsene made a run, and I knew exactly where he was going. One simple pass was all it took to send him on his way, and he put the ball away. 1-0.

We were looking sharp and finally playing without that weight on us. Like the shackles had been removed. But most of all, we were having fun and enjoying the moment, knowing that this was likely the last time we’d share the pitch as teammates. Sydney came back strong and took a 2-1 lead with twenty minutes played, but there was a determination about us that day. I knew we wouldn’t lose.

Dennis pulled us level just before the break. The whistle blew for half-time. Our last talk from the gaffer before we’d all move on to new destinations. There was a bittersweet energy in the dressing room. We went round the team and all said a few words about our time in the academy. When it got to me I told them it had been a pleasure sharing a pitch with them, and that there’s no one I’d have rather gone through those ups and downs with.

“...now let’s go win this match.”

We did come out for the second half a bit shaky, as Sydney took a 3-2 lead early on. I think it was more down to the emotion of the occasion and the reality hitting that this really was the end. We won a corner not long after and I said I’d take it. I knew the second I put the ball down where I wanted it to go…I whipped it in and there was Dennis to pull it back to 3-3 and settle those nerves.

I’d got two assists so far, but I remember feeling like I really wanted to finish the season on a high. I needed a goal. I’d had a few chances earlier on that went close, but I was playing in autopilot, I needed a bit more control and intention. I was willing someone to just make a mistake or something as the clock ticked down.

And in the 74th minute of the game it happened. What should’ve been a routine clearance by the Sydney player ended up being misjudged, the ball skimming off his head and fell straight to me on the corner of the 18-yard box. I saw Voxy darting into the box and it would’ve been a simple tap-in for him, and usually it would’ve been the pass that I’d made. But not now, this was something I needed to do for myself. I went all the way and curled it low past the keeper into the bottom corner from a tight angle. The away fans erupted and chanted my name. For the last time, this was my home and these people were my family.

I stayed behind at the training ground late that night. Just sitting in the warm spring evening, looking up at stars. I pulled out the photo Liv took of me. I looked so young. It felt like I was looking at someone else. So much had happened since the night she took that pic. There wasn’t much that remained of the boy in the photo, but there was one thing I felt then and still did now; I was excited for the future.

Thoughts turned to the upcoming Draft after that. Me and Kairo texted each other regularly about where we thought we’d end up, the possibility we could end up being picked up by the same team. It felt like a whole new world was opening up to us.

Then the day came. Weeks of speculation disappeared in what seemed like an instant. We all got together at the SSL Training Centre ready to be picked out one by one. A Scottish lad called Barry was selected first, which none of us were really surprised about. He was a different level on and off the pitch, and we all know he’ll go far. Names continued to be read out. Players who’d spent the last season together found themselves heading off to different parts of the world. Some will go right to the very top, others will fade in to obscurity, as is the nature of the sport. I wish them all the best though.

There were fist bumps, people celebrating. Others tried to hide their disappointment. Most of us just sat there trying to process it all. For so long the Draft had existed as some abstract idea somewhere in our futures but now it was actually happening.

Seven names had been read out. Me and Kairo sat next to each other, both still in the mix. I fully expected Kairo to be called out in the next couple of picks. I was a bit more tempered with my own expectations and expected to go at some point in the 2nd Round.

And then my name was read out.
“Pick 8 for Liffeyside Celtic FC, and they select...Jack Pow.”

Everything after that was a blur. The excitement, adrenaline, everyone around me patting me on the back and congratulating me. Apparently some more words were said about their reasoning and why they wanted me, but it wouldn’t be until I went home later that night, that I’d hear those reasons.

My friend Kairo was picked straight after me in pick 9. He’s off to Reykjavik. I gave him a bit of stick about being selected after me.

When I got home my mum and her new partner, his name is Lee by the way, congratulated me and we popped open a bottle of wine to celebrate. It was nice but I told them I’d had a long day and wanted to get some sleep. I got in bed and switched on the TV, and re-watched the biggest moment of my career so far.

“...I sometimes end my draft scouting by asking prospects to tell me someone in their class who’s a ‘sleeper pick.’ Jack was mentioned to me as a potential ‘sleeper pick’ so I went and scouted him and knew right away there was nothing ‘sleeper’ about him. We’re expecting great things, and can’t wait to get to work, may the luck of the Irish bless your career. Welcome to Liffeyside!”

It still didn’t feel real. But I knew I’d have to be patient before being able to pull on the green and black of Liffeyside. Rookies rarely go straight into the Majors, and it would be no different for me. I’d be starting off with FC Rova Mpanjaka in...Antananarivo, Madagascar. Halfway across the world in a city I’d never seen, in a country I could’ve never predicted I’d be living in. Strangely, the thought of that didn’t scare me as much as I thought it would. I knew next to nothing about the place and that excited me more than anything. But I’d moved once before, and I could do it again. Leaving one life to start another. I’d already learnt that home isn’t necessarily where you start. Sometimes it can be somewhere you haven’t found yet.

The next few evenings I had plenty of free time. I used it to walk alone through the city. Past the train stations that had become part of my daily routine. Past the empty pitches. Past apartment blocks glowing softly against the violet sky. The city looked exactly as it always had. How it did the first time I saw it from the car window after I landed here at the age of 11. But now it felt different. Because now I knew I was leaving.

I thought about my dad.

About my mum.

The friends I’d made along the way.

The people I’d lost.

The people I loved.

And every version of me that existed between then and now.

At 11 years old I arrived here believing I was leaving my life behind. I didn’t understand then that I was actually moving towards my life. And I still am.
I sat by the pitch one last time. A plane was flying above in the night sky. Soon, one of them would be carrying me south, to a whole new continent. It was time to stop looking back and to start looking forward. So that’s exactly what I did.

[Image: IV-3.png]

We didn’t win the game, but the lessons I learnt that day will stick with me forever.