Clare Henney: March 2013

Before anything else, let me warn all of you that this is a LONG post. I’ve tried to edit it out but the talkative person in me just won’t quit on this one.

Early in February 2012 UFL Cup Champions Stallion Sta. Lucia FC, a club in the 1st Division of the United Football League, posted on Twitter and Facebook about a special contest for its female fans.  The contest was something where the fans (single and female of course) can win a date with their favorite football player on Valentine’s Day. This got female fans excited and had some of the male fans – well – a little put off and wondering what is up with this whole thing.

Frankly – and I say this not because I am female – this was a wise move on the part of SSFC. I was recently talking to my cousin’s husband and he told me some people did a study on Philippine football and they realized that the majority of people who watch the games are female. So to me this was a great marketing ploy to help drum up even more support for the team. If you get the girls to watch the games more, they can get their boyfriends, husbands, brothers, male relatives/friends to come along too. And you know how persuasive we girls can be when we want something right?

My friends and I were joking around about this but we never took it seriously (although in hindsight as a blogger, I actually thought it would be a nice, blog-worthy event if I did get the date). I have always had a bit of a crush on Joaco Canas and joked that I would try to get the date to meet him.

The contest called for girls to take a photo of themselves watching the game last Feb 7th at Rizal Memorial (either right there in Rizal or in front of their TV). Although I was there at Rizal to catch a bit of the game, I didn’t take a photo and thought that was it, I couldn’t join the contest. By the time the deadline came along SSFC was still posting about the contest. I decided to give it a shot. I figured a lot of girls would have asked for a date with Joaco already so I decided to pick someone else, a new guy named Jeremy Hohn. My friends and I were talking about how the defender resembled Azkal Angel Guirado with his long hair (flimsy reason but hey, that’s all I’ve got) so I ended up tweeting SSFC about it and lo and behold, I got the date. I called this the date that almost never was because I almost didn’t go to the date. I wasn’t paying attention to the details of the contest about having to give my contact information to SSFC and had actually given it at the last minute. Thankfully they were still very accommodating and just told me that they would contact me halftime on game day. Funny thing is, even on that day, I didn’t hear from them because as it turns out, they couldn’t contact my phone. Lucky for me I recognized some of the other girls and I found out where to go after the game. Still, bad luck followed me like a stalker: I ended up taking C5 to get to the venue while everyone else took EDSA and I was stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours. It got me thinking: should I attribute my luck (or the lack of it) to the fact that my “date” was #13? I almost did.