My Sir Shane Hammer Heal Story!
21st of May 1997, the best day of my life, the day I touched my hero..
There is not many people who can say that they have touched or met their hero, but I can! (and I do a lot!!!) We won a double pass to see Smiths Boomers vs. Croatia. Since it was my birthday the next day (and I was the only one that would appreciate it!! =) , my mum took me. We got to Sydney early, so we went walking around Darling Harbour.
We were in some shop and I looked up and heres these 3 REALLY tall people walking towards me, and I'm like 'OMIGOD!!'. I looked and the only one I could see, or looked/stared at anyway, was Matthew Neilson. (When I think about it I think the other 2 were Chris Anstey and Aaron Trahair, but I didn't really look at them). Yeah, and so I was looking, or maybe staring, I'm not sure, and Matthew Neilsen smiles and goes hi! So ofcourse I got excited and ran screaming to my mum yelling out Matthew Neilson smiled at me!! I really hope that he was gone by then!!! How embarressing!
So that was heaps cool, and then it was nearly time for the U 23 game, so we went back and watched it. I think we lost to Arizona, but I was too busy watching Shane Heal eating his McDonalds.
Then the big game finally came! Australia was playing Croatia, and when I looked around all I could see was Croatian flags and people singing these weird songs and talking this weird language, and I was thinking, 'this is Australia isn't it?'.
But luckily there were some Aussie supporters around; especially this true blue aussie behind me!!
So the game started. Croatia was winning to start with and so all the Croatian people were screaming and singing these weird songs - god! Its not soccer!!. But then all us Aussie supporters,-- there were like 10 of us! -- started cheering louder and Australia got infront.
John Dorge and one of the Croatians started fighting so all these people started running out from the crowd wanting to fight -- it was pretty strange!
Anyway the game finished and the Boomers won! and they were signing autographs out in the foyer! So I ran over there and just squeezed onto one side of the bench.
I was in such a rush I didn't realise that I only had this little tiny pencil and a scrappy bit of paper! So I got Andrew Gaze and Tonny Jensen to sign that then a security guard gave me a pen that my Dad sent over to me. (from the other side of the room) And I got John Dorge and David Stiff to sign my Boomers/Brick holder-upper-in-the-air-card with the pen.
THEN!!! Everyone started screaming out for Shane!
He came over and he didn't seem tall or anything, - just sweaty!  Everyone was waving their cards at him and he goes, - "Just relax, I'll sign them all".  And guess whos thing he took first! Yup! MINE! I was kinda like -- "OHMIGOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ITS SHANE HEAL,-- RIGHT INFRONT OF ME!!! OMIGOD!!"
Yeah, I was really relaxed like you could expect!! =) Anyway, he signed my card and then kept the pen.  I normally wouldn't have cared, but since it was my dads good one I sorta had to get it back, so I asked him for it ,-- (I spoke to him!!!!!! AAARRGGGHHH!!) and he goes, "Oh, here you go!" and when I took it I touched his hand!!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! That hand shoots all those threes and dribbles all those balls and blocks all those shots and throws all those passes and intercepts all those balls, and I touched it!!!! It was pretty hairy, but thats okay!
So that was the best day of my life and the autographed card is NOT allowed to be touched by any one , anywhere, as it is sacred and SOOO special!
                                                                                Louise. =)
 
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