As the clock ticked into July, Wimbledon resumed training. It's different from last season, now they have three days a week to get together to practice together, Chu Zhongtian doesn't have to worry about not training enough, but he still insists on going to the school court to train with Russell and them.

During this time, there were several big events that were important to Wimbledon.

First, the Kingstonians, who shared the King's Ranch with them, were in an economic crisis and were on the verge of bankruptcy.

In the UK, a team represents the culture of a community, Wimbledon represents the football of the town of Wimbledon, and the Kingstonians represent the football culture of their town, Kingston, although the team has always been obscure and far less famous than their neighbour Wimbledon.

In an effort to save their community's football, Kingston FC made a proposal to Wimbledon Athletic Club to acquire their stadium Kings Ranch. If not, they will be taken over by the government, and if they can't find enough money to inject after the takeover, then the team will face the fate of being disbanded.

Although Wimbledon's home stadium is the Kings Ranch, they are actually renting it for £20,000 a year, and the ownership of the stadium belongs to the Kingstonians. As long as they can sell the stadium, it will ease their financial crisis and help the team tide over the difficulties.

Wimbledon and Kingston share the same pitch, but they are not as hostile to each other as AC Milan and Inter Milan, but rather have a very good relationship. Wimbledon decided to buy Kings Ranch in order to help Kingston Club survive the storm, but before that could be done by a vote of the full club's members.

Because Wimbledon Athletic is an all-fan club, every fan who donated money when the club was founded has no more than one share, and the cost of acquiring that share is very low – a one-time payment of £25 to become a member of the Wimbledon Supporters' Trust, followed by a further £1 a year due, to retain membership and voting rights. At the beginning of the club's establishment, there was a charter that the club had to hold four relatively important meetings a year, similar to the shareholders' meetings of those companies. In addition to these four meetings, any major event involving the club's operation must be convened at a general meeting of shareholders, and shareholders will vote to decide whether it is necessary to do so.

The acquisition of Kings Ranch would leave the team with a lot of debt, so the club's board of directors had to invite members to the gathering to decide whether or not to borrow money to buy Kings Ranch and help Kingstonians weather the storm. It was an important meeting, so there were quite a few people who attended, and quite a few people from Emily and the Dons Bar went, and later, according to Emily, more than a thousand people went to the meeting that day. You must know that the Wimbledon Supporters' Trust has only 1,800 members, and the members who usually attend the four annual rallies are only 80 to 100 members.

The meeting passed a decision to buy the King's Ranch, and everyone supported the club to help Kingstonians weather the storm, and they finally had a stadium of their own.

In this way, Wimbledon Athletic Club took out a loan from the bank and bought the stadium for £2.4 million. But they didn't stop there, after buying Kings Ranch and helping Kingston Club pay off its debts, they helped Kingston Club establish a fan foundation as "Men of the Past", turning Kingston Club into a club that belongs entirely to fans, and now Wimbledon is no longer the only part of English football.

During that time, Emily had been very busy and didn't come to accompany Chu Zhongtian much. As an ardent supporter of Wimbledon Athletic Club and a well-known "Princess Dons", she played a good social role in this kind of thing.

The acquisition of the King's Ranch to help Kingston survive the economic crisis is still an incident at the top of the club after all, and it is still a little far from Chu Zhongtian, an ordinary player who does not ask about "political affairs". But there are two other things that are not far away from him.

※※※ This day is the day of the team's training, Chu Zhongtian ran to the King's Ranch with the ball, but found that everyone did not stay in the locker room to change clothes, but gathered around the court, looking at their clothes, it was obvious that they had just arrived here and went directly to the court.

Is there another media interview?

The last time I saw a similar scene was because they shouted the slogan to upgrade, which attracted a group of media interviews.

Chu Zhongtian came up to see the excitement.

He found Shirin in the crowd and patted him on the shoulder: "Hey, dead jeep." What are you looking at today......"

When Xi Lin turned around, a gap appeared in the human wall, Chu Zhongtian followed this gap and saw inside, his words were lost in the middle of his words, guess what he saw inside?

Emily, wearing a Wimbledon jersey and holding a soccer ball with a sweet smile, stood in his line of sight, in front of her, holding a professional camera, next to someone holding a reflector and a parasol. This is the posture of professional photography...... But Emily is here, what's going on?

At the sound of the shutter, Emily kept changing her pose. She held the soccer ball in her arms for a while, and held it with one hand for the other, and even juggled the ball.

Seeing Emily skillfully playing the football, the group of players around her couldn't help but burst into applause and whistles.

"Excellent! Excellent! The photographer pressed the shutter and kept complimenting.

"Ah, Chu, come and see. Emily! Xi Lin turned around and saw Chu Zhongtian, and hurriedly waved his hand at him, signaling him to squeeze in to see the excitement.

"It's a good bump!" Shirin exclaimed.

"What's going on?" Chu Zhongtian asked.

"Our club is going to set up a women's football team, so we asked Emily to take some photos and make promotional posters."

"Women's soccer team?" Chu Zhongtian was stunned for a moment before he realized what it was. However, he does know that many English football clubs have women's football teams, such as the famous Arsenal, and their women's football teams are not bad.

He was just a little surprised that the club did not build echelons for all ages first, but first engaged in the women's football team.

"Well, Emily is the face of our women's soccer team, ha!"

"Emily is so beautiful today!"

"Actually, it's our jerseys that are beautiful!"

"It's all beautiful, haha! All beautiful! ”

Everyone discussed it with great interest, and some even shouted, "Emily, I love you!" Marry me! Such explicit words caused a burst of laughter.

"Hey, don't try to be the enemy of the people!"

※※※ "OK, very good. "The photographer signaled that today's shooting would end here." It's really professional, and the feeling in front of the camera is very, very good. The photographer gave Emily a thumbs up.

Emily had a good laugh and she gave the football back to head coach Eames.

"Okay, there's nothing to see about it." Assistant coach Ingrid was on the side to catch the reluctant group of players to the locker room. "Let's get dressed, we're going to start training!"

The players turned back three times in one step and reluctantly walked off the field.

Chu Zhongtian also followed the crowd towards the locker room, but he was stopped by Emily as soon as he took two steps.

"Chu!"

Chu Zhongtian stopped, and the other teammates watched Emily run towards Chu Zhongtian with envy. They all knew that Emily and Chu had a good relationship, but they didn't make a fuss. But they can tease Chu in their mouths.

"What a lucky boy, I'll exchange it with you, Chu!"

"Don't talk too long, Chu. Beware of the boss losing his temper, ha! ”

A group of bad guys left laughing, and Chu Zhongtian stood on the field a little uncomfortably, watching Emily run closer and closer.

"What about me?" Emily spun around in front of Chu Zhongtian.

When she turned her back to Chu Zhongtian, he saw that the number of this jersey turned out to be "8", ...... "Hey, this number ......"

"The number is yours, right?" Emily asked.

Chu Zhongtian nodded, he was a little surprised.

Emily smiled proudly, "Isn't there anything else familiar with this number?" She spun around in front of Chu Zhongtian again.

Chu Zhongtian frowned and looked at it carefully before he saw it: "Isn't this my jersey......"

"That's right!" Emily made a "V" gesture, "This is your jersey, it's all in one set!" Except for the sneakers......"

Looking at Emily's happy appearance, Chu Zhongtian suddenly thought that this jersey was worn by Emily, and then he was wearing it during the game...... Is this an indirect skin-to-skin blind date?

This topic is very fragrant, but Chu Zhongtian didn't dare to continue thinking about it, now he is only wearing a pair of shorts, which is not enough to cover up...... "Why did you take pictures in my jersey?" So he had to ask a question to divert his attention.

"Don't like it?"

"Uh, no, no." Chu Zhongtian hurriedly waved his hand, for fear that the girl in front of him would misunderstand. "It's just weird......"

"Want to know why?" Emily looked at him with teasing eyes.

Chu Zhongtian nodded obediently.

"I won't tell you, hehe!" Emily turned and ran away.

Chu Zhongtian looked at the girl's back and shrugged his shoulders, he really couldn't figure out what Emily was thinking...... ※※※ During the training this day, everyone has been discussing the upcoming women's football team, in the eyes of many players, this is a sign of the regularization of the club, because many regular football clubs have women's teams, and not only the senior team, but also the women's echelon.

Of course, in fact, the most discussed is Emily wearing a Wimbledon jersey for photos. There are even people who have the idea to let Emily take some sexy photos and print them on team posters and sell them to fans to make money.

"If it really comes out, I'll buy ten copies of the collection!"

"What do you want so much to do, blog?"

"Hang up all the rooms, even the bathroom!"

"You're a pervert ......"

"Don't think about it, Emily wouldn't do that."

"What a pity......"

Chu Zhongtian did not participate, and he remained silent during this discussion. He doesn't like to see his friends naked** printed on the calendar, if he really wants to print, then only print one...... Just take care of yourself.

※※※ Chu Zhongtian, who went to Dons to work at night, got another news.

Boss John showed him a letter from Wimbledon Athletic to every member of the Wimbledon Supporters' Trust. It calls on members to donate generously to support the team and select a player from the team to sponsor.

"Sponsor a player?" Chu Zhongtian heard this word for the first time, and he felt very fresh.

In fact, sponsoring teams and players has long been commonplace in English football.

"yes, sponsorship." The fat boss pointed to a copy of the team schedule booklet attached to the letter, "And this thing." Finally seeing this thing again. ”

The so-called team schedule booklet is a printed material produced and sold by the club itself before each round of matches, which is very rich in content, which is used to introduce the team's schedule, opponents, players themselves, club officials, coaching staff members and other information. However, that's only a small part of the schedule booklet today, and it's more of an ad for team commemorative merchandise, an ad for the team's sponsors, and a few other messy articles, and even some social news, plus a lot of beautiful photos, and maybe you can find a photo like the girl on the third page of The Sun. These colorful brochures look more like a list of discounted items that supermarkets give away to customers for free.

Originally just over 20 pages, at least four or five pages, the maximum is now 100 pages, produced by West Bromwich Albion, who had just been promoted to the Premier League last season, in their first home game of the new season against Leeds United on 24 August 2002.

What is now in front of Chu Zhongtian is a schedule manual made by Wimbledon Athletic Club itself, a thin one, which seems to be only a dozen pages. It's called "wombles" (Wemble). The reason for not using the word "Crazy Gang" is that the moving Wimbledon Football Club still exists, the nickname belongs to them, and Wimbledon Athletic has no right to use it today, but the club is now actively appealing to the FA in the hope of getting proof that it will continue the Wimbledon tradition after the rich team moves and changes its name. The reason for not using "Dons" (the_dons) is because of Pete. Winckelmann's so-called "keeping 'dons' in the new club's name is a sign of our connection to Wimbledon" was so angry that Wimbledon fans called themselves "Wimble" in order to distinguish themselves from that team.

The cover of this newspaper features Captain Kevin Brown. A photo of Cooper's goal, the coated cover glows white in the light. The printing is beautiful, and the price is ...... Chu Zhongtian flipped to the back and saw that the price was 1.5 pounds, which was not expensive...... Boss John flipped through the schedule booklet, and the first page after the table of contents was the team's squad. is ranked according to the number, and Chu Zhongtian easily found his name from it: "8, chu".

"What's the deal with sponsoring players, boss?" Chu Zhongtian knew what the schedule manual was, but he still didn't figure it out about sponsoring players.

"Some clubs are financially tight, so they use this way to call on fans to donate, but the people who donate have a visible return, and everyone likes it." Boss John pointed to Chu Zhongtian's name on the schedule book and said, "For example, if I choose to sponsor you, then in the schedule book of each game, as long as you can play, my name will appear in this booklet along with your name." It is a kind of gratitude and reward for the sponsors. ”

"What exactly do you sponsor?"

"Appearance fees, clothing fees, sneakers, training equipment." Boss John counted Chu Zhongtian with his fingers, "The letter said that each sponsorship is fifteen pounds. If all four are sponsored, there is a discount, fifty pounds is fine. ”

Chu Zhongtian understood that the nature of the big enterprises that dare to sponsor the team is the same, but the amount is much smaller...... "Actually, all of your equipment is provided by the club, and our money is just used elsewhere." For example, the club has just bought the King's Ranch, owes a lot of money, and now has formed a women's soccer team, and money is needed everywhere. So use this method to make some money. Boss John said. Anyone who paid for it when the club was founded and had a stake received it. But in fact, there are only a few dozen people in the team, and we have more than 1,000 members. It is not possible for everyone to sponsor the players. I think even if we are one person in the bar, it is enough to sponsor one player. ”

Speaking of this, he raised his head and looked at Chu Zhongtian, Chu Zhongtian guessed something, he pointed to himself: "You want to sponsor me?" ”

"That's right! Sponsor you! Boss John nodded and said loudly.

"I'm against it!" A crisp female voice sounded behind Boss John, startling him.

He and Chu Zhongtian turned their eyes in the direction where the voice came from, and saw Emily standing in the door with a smile on her face.

"Emily? You're scared the hell out of me......" Boss John said patting him on the chest.

"I'm sorry, Uncle John. Chu has been sponsored by me. ”

"Huh?" This time it was Chu Zhongtian's turn to be surprised, he pointed at himself with a surprised expression.

"But when I received the letter, I decided...... "Boss John didn't want to budge on this matter, because it was a collective decision of their bar." There's got to be a first-come, first-come, right, Emily? ”

"I'm before you, Uncle John. I had already told the club that I was going to sponsor Chu after I found out about it. Emily grinned, "Don't forget, I have the inside scoop, Uncle John." ”

"Ah,......" Boss John muttered, reacting to him. He really forgot about it, Emily had told them about the formation of the team, and she must have known about the club before she knew anything about it.

"So, Uncle John, Chu is mine, don't rob me."

After speaking, she also winked at Chu Zhongtian, who was standing stupidly.

Hearing her say this, John hurriedly raised his hands: "Okay, I surrender, Emily." Now Chu is yours. ”

"Hey, I'm not a commodity." Chu Zhongtian, who reacted, protested.

"Watch your tone, my patron." Emily smiled and knocked Chu Zhongtian on the head, "Bring me a pint of Guinness." ”

"Okay, my sponsor." Chu Zhongtian replied angrily.

When Chu Zhongtian handed the Guinness stout to Emily, he asked, "You are wearing my jersey for a photo, is it because you are the sponsor of that jersey?" ”

"I'm sponsoring you, not the jersey." Emily corrected him as he was not satisfied with his statement.

"It's all the same......" Chu Zhongtian shrugged his shoulders and disagreed.

"No, no, it's different, it's very different." Emily interrupted with a shake of her head.

She took the schedule booklet, turned to the page of the team squad, pointed to Chu Zhongtian's name and said to him: "From now on, until the end of the season, your name will be followed by my name." Chu-Emily. Clear. Emily. ”

Chu Zhongtian looked up at the girl in front of him, shouldn't she spend fifty pounds to buy a name like this?

Emily smiled happily as she read the new name.

(To be continued)