anthony gordon x england hockey player au
As camp settles into a comfortable routine, breakfasts, walks between sessions and quiet evenings in the common room begin turning strangers into genuine friends
By the fourth morning, camp had already settled into a rhythm.
Breakfast was at half past seven. Training started at nine. Lunch was always busy, afternoons disappeared in a blur of meetings and recovery, and by the evening everyone somehow found themselves back in the common room before wandering upstairs to bed.
It had only been a few days, but it already felt normal.
I wandered into the dining hall with Harriet, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes as we joined the queue for breakfast. Around us, the room buzzed with the same familiar sounds it had every morning. Coffee machines hissed in the background, cutlery clinked against plates and conversations drifted between tables as people compared training schedules or complained about how sore they were.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to those Yo-Yo tests," Harriet said, stretching one shoulder before reaching for a plate. "My legs still hate me."
"You say that every year."
"Because every year they're awful."
"They're supposed to be."
"I know," she sighed dramatically. "I just don't have to like them."
We filled our plates in comfortable silence, adding far more fruit than either of us probably needed before making our way through the dining hall. Without really thinking about it, my eyes scanned the room for a familiar table.
"They're over there," Harriet said casually, nodding towards the windows.
Bukayo was halfway through what looked like his second bowl of cereal, gesturing animatedly as he told a story I couldn't hear from across the room. Anthony sat beside him, listening with the same quiet smile I'd started noticing more often over the last couple of days. Morgan was shaking his head, clearly unconvinced by whatever Bukayo was saying.
It hadn't even crossed my mind to sit anywhere else.
"Morning," Bukayo called as we reached the table. "Perfect timing. Morgan's accusing me of making this whole story up."
Morgan looked at us expectantly.
"He says he once convinced his Year Six teacher he was allergic to cross-country."
"I implied I physically couldn't run."
Harriet pulled out the chair beside him. "I'm with Morgan."
"Thank you," Morgan said.
Bukayo looked at me. "Floss?"
"I think you're both missing the important question."
A grin spread across his face.
Harriet let out a disappointed laugh.
"I've backed the wrong side."
"I told you," Bukayo said triumphantly.
I slid into the empty chair opposite Anthony, setting my mug on the table.
"You've started something now."
Anthony looked up from his breakfast.
Not because of what he'd said, but because he'd said it at all.
A few days ago, he probably wouldn't have joined the conversation. Now the comment came so naturally that nobody even paused to acknowledge it.
I smiled across the table.
"I've spent enough time around you lot," Anthony replied, taking another bite of toast. "I figured I had to start defending myself."
Bukayo nodded approvingly.
"See? Character development."
"I think that's the first funny thing you've ever said," Harriet told Anthony.
The conversation rolled on as breakfast usually did, jumping from one completely unrelated topic to another. Before long we were debating which sport had the earliest starts, whether pineapple belonged on pizza and why the coffee machine only seemed to break whenever Jordan wanted one.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, I realised something.
None of us had chosen these seats.
Nobody had suggested sitting together.
At some point over the last few days, this had simply become our table.
The walk from the dining hall to the training pitches had become almost as much a part of the routine as breakfast itself. Every morning, clusters of athletes spilled out onto the pathways at roughly the same time, coffee cups in hand, hoodies zipped up against the cool Staffordshire air. Some conversations lasted only a few minutes before teams split off in different directions, while others carried all the way to the changing rooms.
Our little group always seemed to end up together.
Nobody ever suggested it. It just happened.
Bukayo walked a few steps ahead with Harriet, passionately arguing that cereal should be eaten at any time of day, while Anthony and I followed behind at a more relaxed pace. The conversation drifted comfortably between us, never feeling like either of us had to fill the silence.
"My brothers would agree with him," I said, nodding towards Bukayo. "There was a phase where one of them ate Weetabix for dinner every night."
Anthony laughed. "How many brothers have you got again?"
"Four. Three older and one younger."
He looked at me with genuine sympathy.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"I imagine you had to fight to get a word in."
He smiled. "I'm one of three."
"That also explains a lot."
"I don't know if my brothers would agree."
Before he had a chance to reply, Bukayo slowed his pace and looked back over his shoulder.
"Are you two coming, or have you started your own walking club back there?"
"We're coming," I called, laughing as Anthony shook his head.
"We're never going to hear the end of that, are we?"
Without either of us realising it, we'd already fallen into step again as we crossed the final stretch towards the training pitches. It was a small thing, barely noticeable, but it no longer felt as though we were making conversation because we happened to be in the same place.
It was simply becoming part of the day.
The common room had quickly become my favourite place to end the day. Nobody ever organised it, but after dinner everyone naturally drifted there, drawn in by the promise of comfortable sofas and nowhere else they needed to be. The television played quietly in the background, though hardly anyone seemed interested in it. A game of pool had claimed one corner of the room, someone was shuffling a deck of cards near the windows, and every few minutes laughter erupted from the kitchen as another group discovered whatever snacks had been left behind.
I had claimed the far end of one of the sofas, curled beneath a blanket with a novel resting open on my lap. I wasn't getting much reading done. Every time I reached the bottom of the page, another conversation nearby caught my attention, and before I knew it I'd forgotten everything I'd just read.
"You're definitely not on that chapter anymore."
I looked up to find Anthony standing beside the sofa, a bottle of water in one hand and the faintest smile on his face.
"What makes you say that?"
"You've turned the same page three times."
I glanced down at the book and laughed.
"I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice."
He nodded towards the empty armchair opposite me. When I gestured for him to sit, he dropped into it with a tired sigh, resting his elbows on the armrests as he looked around the room.
"It's weird how quickly this has become normal," he said after a moment.
"All of this." He motioned vaguely around the common room. "A week ago none of us knew each other. Now it feels like everyone ends up in here every night."
I smiled because I'd been thinking exactly the same thing.
"I know. It already feels strange imagining everyone eating separately."
Across the room, Jordan celebrated potting a ball on the pool table as though he'd just scored a ninety-third minute winner. Declan's groan carried across the room a second later, followed by at least three people telling Jordan to calm down.
"He celebrates everything."
"He celebrated finding a clean towel this morning."
"That sounds about right."
"He'll celebrate anything if there's an audience."
"I feel like Harriet's exactly the same."
He looked genuinely surprised.
"Oh, absolutely. She acts all sensible until there's any sort of competition, then she becomes unbearable."
"I'd pay to watch those two on opposite teams."
"They'd both claim the referee was against them."
We sat watching the latest disagreement unfold around the pool table, both of us trying not to laugh as Jordan attempted to explain why the black ball had somehow been in the wrong place.
After a few moments I closed my book properly and set it beside me.
"Right, I've got a question."
"What's one thing people always assume about footballers that's completely wrong?"
He thought about it for a second before answering.
"That we're all obsessed with football all the time."
"I love it," he said, smiling, "but I don't go home and watch four matches every night."
"I don't know. I thought you all slept in full kit."
He laughed properly at that.
"Only on special occasions."
"What about hockey players?" he asked. "What's the biggest misconception?"
"You're not convincing me otherwise."
Before I could elaborate, Bukayo wandered over carrying an almost empty bowl of popcorn.
"There you are," he said, dropping onto the sofa beside me without waiting for an invitation. "Morgan's trying to convince everyone he could beat Harriet in a fitness test."
"He's delusional," I replied.
Almost as if she'd heard her name, Harriet appeared from the kitchen balancing two mugs of hot chocolate. She handed one to me before settling into the space Bukayo had made beside me, immediately looking between the three of us.
"Morgan thinks he's fitter than you."
She took a slow sip of her drink.
"I'm serious!" Morgan called from the other side of the room.
"No, you're not," Harriet shouted back. "You're just confident."
Laughter spread across the room as Morgan launched into an enthusiastic defence of himself, dragging half the football team into the argument. Before long everyone had an opinion, stories were flying across the room about the morning's training, somebody had produced a packet of biscuits from somewhere, and the conversation drifted from one ridiculous topic to another without ever really settling.
At some point I noticed my book was still sitting exactly where I'd left it.
I hadn't read another page all evening, and for once, I didn't mind in the slightest.
The corridor was noticeably quieter by the time everyone finally started calling it a night.
Doors opened and closed one after another as people peeled away in twos and threes, offering sleepy goodnights before disappearing into their rooms. Somewhere further down the hall someone was still laughing loudly enough that it echoed off the walls, quickly followed by a chorus of shushing that only made them laugh harder.
I had just escaped Harriet's room after what was supposed to have been a "quick chat" that somehow turned into nearly an hour when another door opened a few rooms down.
Anthony stepped out of Bukayo's room at the same time I pulled mine shut behind me.
He spotted me almost immediately.
"Barely," I replied, smiling. "Harriet and Freya started debating whether cereal counts as soup."
He looked genuinely confused.
He laughed, falling into step beside me as we headed down the corridor.
"I've just spent forty-five minutes listening to Bukayo explain why he thinks he'd win Love Island."
"Please tell me nobody agreed."
"I've suddenly got a lot more respect for Morgan."
"He was trying to convince him otherwise."
We walked the rest of the way at an unhurried pace, the conversation drifting effortlessly from one ridiculous story to another. There was no awkwardness anymore and no pressure to keep talking. Every now and then one of us would remember something that had happened during the day, laugh about it for a minute or two, and then let the silence settle again.
We reached my room first.
"Well," I said, pulling my key card from my pocket, "I'll see you at breakfast."
"If Jordan hasn't already eaten everything."
"He'll definitely have eaten everything."
I stepped inside, waiting until I heard his footsteps continue down the corridor before closing the door behind me.
It had been a completely ordinary conversation.
For some reason, it was the one I'd smiled about the most all day.
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