Football has introduced me to thousands of people.
Very few became friends.
Mick Pattinson and Mike Charlesworth are two of the best people I have met in football.
I have known them both for years.
Mick is Luton.
Mike is Leeds.
I am Blackburn.
That was enough to get us started.
Tampa
We spent time together in Tampa.
Three football people talking about clubs, owners, supporters and the strange decisions this game makes people take.
There was no
plan bringing us together then.
There was just football.
That matters more to me now than it did at the time.
Because years later, we are still talking.
And some of those conversations have become considerably bigger.
California
Mick later drove me around California.
I remember being in the car, looking at places rather than looking at a presentation.
Roads.
Land.
Communities.
The scale of California.
Mick knew the place.
Not from Google Maps.
He had spent decades building there.
He had also been a shareholder at Luton Town.
Those two parts of his life now collide rather neatly with mine.
I am trying to bring back the Los Angeles Aztecs.
And I do not want them to exist forever as somebody else’s tenant.
I want them to have a home.
Mick understands what it takes to turn land into something real.
That is enough.
Mike
Mike knows the other side of football.
He owned Central Coast Mariners.
Not from a distance.
He carried the responsibility that comes with owning a professional club.
Mike also supported me long before there was anything obvious in it for him.
At an important point in my own journey, he gave me a formal statement of support.
He put his name beside mine.
I remember that.
Blackburn
My route into football was less conventional.
I left school young.
Became a hairdresser.
Built businesses and brands.
Then found my way deeper into football.
Blackburn Rovers were there long before any of that.
Forty years later, they still are.
Football does that to you.
The Aztecs
Now there is Los Angeles.
Cruyff played for the Aztecs.
George Best played for the Aztecs.
Then the club disappeared.
I want to see it live again.
Not as a nostalgia act.
As a real football club with somewhere to call home.
That is where Mick and Mike have become important.
Not because I went looking for people with impressive CVs.
They were already my friends.
Mick understands California and development.
Mike has lived football ownership.
I bring the brand, football network and obsession to make it happen.
More importantly, they will tell me when I am wrong.
London
A few days ago I was in London with my wife and children.
I do not go out much.
But I wanted to see them.
Mick had travelled from California.
Mike took time away from a busy office.
We had a meal.
No boardroom.
No deck.
No agenda on the table.
Just three friends talking football.
Luton.
Leeds.
Blackburn.
And, inevitably, Los Angeles.
I found myself thinking about Tampa.
About sitting beside Mick while he drove me around California.
About Mike putting his name behind me when he did not have to.
About all the conversations we have had over the years.
Football can be ridiculous.
It can also put people into your life who would never have been there otherwise.
Mick Pattinson and Mike Charlesworth are two of those people for me.
If the Los Angeles Aztecs eventually walk onto a pitch again, people will see the shirts, the players and the stadium.
I suspect I will remember smaller things.
Tampa.
A car driving through California.
A statement of support.
A table in London.
Three mates.
One loves Luton.
One loves Leeds.
One loves Blackburn.
Talking about bringing back a football club 5,000 miles away.