The taxi ride that changed my year.

The taxi ride that changed my year:

When I was coming through the agent ranks, I spent nearly nine months trying to secure a meeting with a well-known Premier League manager in London. After endless follow-ups and rejections, I had finally locked a meeting in.

Then, on the morning of the meeting, he called. The club owner had summoned him up north. The meeting was cancelled.

Instead of trying to rearrange (I knew that might mean waiting months again), I asked how he was getting to the train station. He replied that the club would order him a taxi.

I offered to pick him up and drive him instead.

That 25-minute drive from the training ground to King’s Cross station became our meeting.

We discussed what positions he needed, we went through my players (I brought player CVs and clips), and by the time he stepped out of the car, we’d laid the groundwork for a transfer that closed that same window. It was the biggest deal I’d done in 2 windows.

That was my hundred-point shot.

It was where preparation met opportunity.

In this case the cancelled plans just meant a change of format, not a dead end. Most people would have let the moment go at that point but I took a very small chance and it turned into the deal of the year for me

In football, and in business, opportunity usually doesn't follow the perfect pattern.

Sometimes you have to catch it before it leaves because the best deals don’t hang around, someone else will spot them and they’ll be gone.