Graham Caygill’s love affair with football started when he was 15, after a psychologist asked their class to form lumps of clay into models of what they wanted to be when they grew up. All of his friends made doctors and policemen; he molded a football player.
“I remember the people beside me – they were laughing at me and saying that I will never become a footballer,” he shared. But instead of getting discouraged, Graham channeled this into motivation and took a chance on the sport.
“I can remember my first training session down our local park. The training was pretty simple, running back and forth and slowly introducing the ball. I remember coming home from that session with my dad and I didn’t want to stop. I just wanted to keep playing,” he said.
Graham slowly worked his way into the semi-professional league and soon got to play professionally with the Loyola Meralco Sparks here in the Philippines. He played 6 games a week and trained twice a day, every day.
"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. I know that I am not the best footballer in my team but I do work hard,” he said.
Although Graham recently left the team, his passion for the sport and constant improvement never ceased. As one of the newest additions to the Gameplan family, Graham hopes to inspire other people to try new things and achieve something greater than themselves.
“My gameplan is to show people how they can work hard and achieve things they never thought they would ever achieve. I never thought I would be a host; now I’m a host. I never thought I’d be a footballer; now I’m a footballer. You can really do it if you try and work hard,” he said. – Rappler.com