Three players at Bethnal Green Celtic have walked out and left the team because of me. You might think I’m being ‘melodramatic’ again but actually I’m not. They have left because they don’t agree with me being in the starting line-up every game.

I knew it would happen, As soon as me and Wayne (my brother) agreed to set up a football team I knew it would not be long before people started making snide comments like “Dean is only in the team because the manager is his brother”.

Yesterday Three players walked out of the team. One of them was a decent left sided player, the other was a Ronaldo wannabe and the third was a back-up goalkeeper and also our assistant manager.

I’m an old fashioned defender, I go in hard, fast and strong for the ball. I get very passionate when I play football and will shout, stomp and swear my head off for the full 90 minutes. I don’t mean anything by it I just want us to win so badly.

It is not just these three people that have a problem with me being in the team, I’ve been told that about 75% of the team resent me playing as they think I’m getting special treatment as one of my siblings is the manager. It hasn’t hit them that I’m playing because I’m one of the more reliable defenders we have, especially with Johnny out for three months.

So I told Wayne and told him I don’t want to be included in the line-up for Saturday, our first game of the season. I told him that if he is desperate for subs then he can put me on the bench and maybe bring me on if a player is injured but apart from that I don’t want to play for a couple of months.

Maybe by taking myself out of the team people will stop with the slagging offs and snide remarks. Who knows it might stop completely and after a couple of months I might be able to come back.

Chris (goalkeeper & assistant manager) left a message on Facebook ripping into me saying that I have no pace. I’m almost 31 and I have two dodgy knees which are riddled with ligament damage and arthritis. The fact that I can walk let alone run is quite an achievement!

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