Tuesday 1st April 2008
Pressure is a fact of life when you're a top FA premiership footballer. In a snatched moment from daily training, Reading FC goalie, Marcus Hahnemann, tells Sally Jarman how his faith helps him deal with the expectations and the demands of success.
Just trying to catch up with Marcus Hahnemann to arrange our interview gives me a small insight into the high octane pace of his life; we talk was we walk on the way to the next engagement in his busy daily diary.
As first-choice goalkeeper for Premier League club Reading FC, as well as a member of the US National Team, there’s no such thing as a quiet season. And with the hopes of all the ‘Royals’ fans resting on his broad American shoulders each weekend, only 100 per cent effort will do.
‘It’s a crazy schedule’ he admits; ‘I’m 35 now and last season was probably my best ever, but I have to work real hard to stay up there.’
It would be easy, in such a high pressure, focused environment, to lose perspective. But it is here that faith and family come into play for Marcus.
Football, family and faith are, he says, the cornerstones of his life – and not necessarily in that order! With so much going on throughout each week, Sundays have become sacred in more ways than one.
‘Sunday is my only day off each week,’ he explains; ‘So everything that’s not football has to fit into that one day. Actually football might even creep in then too, if my boys are playing for their teams and I go watch!
‘It’s definitely a day for family though. I like to spend time with my wife and kids just hanging out together; and recently my family have been over from the States so we’ve been going off doing things with them.’
It’s family that keeps him grounded, he believes, reminding him about what is enduring and constant in his life beyond career success:
Insightfully he says, ‘Obviously it’s important to me to be successful as a footballer. But any sportsman’s time is limited and you have to have more than that.’
Faith, too, has shaped Hahnemann’s philosophy on life since his college days when, finding himself at a Christian university and expected to attend chapel services, he says his interest in Christianity was kickstarted at services led by an American ex-footballer whom he found ‘unbelievably cool’.
‘I’m fairly outgoing and I really felt that here was someone I could relate to. There was such a different atmosphere and he made it all so interesting.’
Already a powerhouse on the football field – he was rated among the nation’s top 10 in shutouts and goals against average in all four of his collegiate seasons – he is quick to acknowledge God’s hand in his long-running success: ‘It’s got to be something more than just me. When I was a kid I wanted to join the military and fly helicopters. I didn’t dream of being a footballer. But sometimes I look at how lucky I’ve been to have been doing something I love for so long (I started at 21 so that’s 13 years), and to still be at the top of the game now. So many opportunities have presented themselves and I am very thankful for that.’
Hahnemann is known by the Reading crowds for taking time to pray and reflect for a time before every match: ‘I don’t know what I say really. God doesn’t care whether I win or lose, but I think it kind of puts everything into perspective a little bit’, he explains.
As a supporter of the Oxford Diocese’s first Back to Church Sunday campaign last year in Berkshire, Marcus helped launch the event, sharing the Reading pitch with a surprise new player - the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell!
He says one current regret is no longer being a regular member of the family’s local church in Pangbourne, due mainly to competition for his time on Sundays.
He says: ‘I do think church is a great thing for families to do together. But I think lots of people have the same dilemma as we do in our house if it’s the only day everyone gets to spend time together, or if they have other places that some of them have to be at the time a service is on.
‘Right now I think the most important to me is just to be doing things with my kids, even if it’s playing the X-box. But my wife and I do try to make sure they know about our faith and understand our values. It’s a background to our lives at the moment but it’s still there.’
Currently contracted to Reading until the end of the season, Hahnemann is sanguine about the future;
‘Sometimes I think you can drive yourself crazy thinking about it too much so I try to take life as it comes and not dwell on the negative stuff. But I had thought I’d like to keep going until I’m 40, so God willing I’ll carry on.’