Kristie Ettrick on Life as the Green Goblins' Co-Pilot
Kristie Ettrick has been the assistant manager of the Mertagnian National Football team for the last five years. Previously, she managed the U21 team before the management structure was consolidated, and before that she managed at the club level for Lehen Neorudo and Bricklayer's Union. Having gown up in Neorudo's Old Quarter during the Insulation, Ettrick has surmounted the odds and grown to be an intimidating presence in international football, famous for loud brash remarks and strings of expletive laden insults. One of her most famous on pitch moments was during Matchday 3 of the 82nd Cup of Harmony, where she grabbed two half-time snack limes and pressed them against the cheeks of winger Shawn Dewar, asking him what he was. An "idiot gimlet" was the desired response.
It's been said that Kristie Ettrick doesn't 'do' interviews. This is, of course, a lie - she simply doesn't do ambush interviews, which are very common among other, less prestigious pillars of Mertagnian journalism. In order to secure such an elusive, over-the-table meeting, I was harried along to the contact details of a certain Lis Lawrence, who oversees all of the interview affairs for a variety of faces in the FMF. Lawrence booked me in for an early afternoon slot down in Neorudo, and I met with a fairly flustered Ettrick as she entered a lovely stone-cut coffee shop in the Old Quarter, which was her home for many years. The owner of the shop, a portly pale man with a thick black moustache, greets her exuberantly as she enters, pipping me to the post and leaving me to stand like a bit of a spare part, arm outstretched to shake a hand that is now awkwardly embracing the proprietor. When Ettrick wrestles him off of her, she clocks me with a certain glint in her eye, claps me on the shoulder, and sits down at the table that she was keenly aware I'd just left.
"Let's get this over and done with, then", she says, squinting at the chalkboard menu in the dim electric lights of this cave shop. Her blonde hair, currently shoulder length and a bit wavy, looks windswept, which is a hard look to achieve in the rather stale air of the Old Quarter. "I've got a training session at 18:00 and I'm not getting the Heritage Railway up the hill".
For those not in the know, Neorudo is an ancient city that pre-dates the Mertagnian colonisation during and after the Week of the Small Ships. Originally a city state known as Leorudo, the primary district of the city sits atop and within the plateau of Mount Leorudo, and was originally divided into several districts before being pillaged by invaders hundreds of years ago. One such district is the Old Quarter, which sits within the mountain with homes and businesses carved directly into the rock. A sect of disparate, ungoverned peoples, the Native Leorudans, took care of the city state before the Mertagnians arrived. Ettrick has an ancestry in those people, and therefore it is no surprise she chose to meet me here, a place where clearly she has friends.
I dive right in, asking how she ended up on the career path of a footballer. "It's simple. I grew up in the Insulation. You did what you were good at to get by. I was good at football. I had my roots here in Neorudo, and how we lived during the Insulation wasn't too different to the old ways. Similar levels of 'freedom', you might call it. But I played football, I grafted at Lehen - handing out bottles of water to professionals - and the companies took an interest in me, saw that I could be a part of the 'brand' that these clubs cultivated across the nation and beyond. So I got picked to play for Lehen. Wowed them there. Retired from play and then got to managing. Some say that I was the only person young enough for the FMF job, and here we are."
Ettrick is certainly a presence in the national football team, playing second fiddle to Ázëwyn Fëanáro. I make this comment and she nearly slaps my coffee out of my hands. "I resent 'second fiddle'. It's a pragmatic choice. Fëanáro's got more experience than most people in the multiverse. The national team wouldn't do half as well as it does if our roles were reverse. And besides, you know what they say - behind every elf is a great woman. I'm that woman."
Considering her bold and brash personality, pulling the strings from the sidelines can surely be difficult sometimes. When challenged on that difficulty, she rises to it. "If anything, saying less is more effective nowadays. I've had this picture up in other people's heads, that I'm this terrifying hydra that'll chew out any member of the team that isn't pulling their weight. Don't get me wrong, I really would, but I do care for everyone that find themselves in the top spots of the national team. They're like family - you're allowed to shout at them because they know you love them."
Was this something her own family was like? "Well, I never really knew my dad. He was scraping a living over in Starblaydia while I was growing up, so I very rarely saw him. My mother, on the other hand, she raised me, along with most of the rest of the Old Quarter. You know the saying 'it takes a village to raise a child'? That was how things were done down here during the Insulation. People looked after each other because they had to. And that's how I learned about the world. Campani over there actually taught me how to shave." She points at the portly mustachioed man who is currently operating a steamy coffee machine. He pays no mind to Ettrick, instead focusing on serving his customers. I imagine that he owned this shop during the Insulation, but was also forced to live here, in the caves. Legislation since then has ensured all living in the Old Quarter have received housing elsewhere, and millions of Ducats have been spent improving ventilation in the old magma chamber, which has improved conditions significantly, but the Old Quarter and the district surrounding its single entrance remains one of the poorest areas in Mertagne.
I ask Kristie - does this impact her legacy? "Many people like to milk it as a sob story. It's a bit reductivist to do so. I survived my childhood. I didn't truly live until my twenties, when I could afford to, but that doesn't really matter. Nowadays, I do significantly better than most Mertagnians. Was it because I worked hard? A bit, but most of it was down to luck. You have to be lucky to thrive in this country, sadly. Sport is excellent for levelling the playing field, once you can get into it. People don't care where you come from when you can play well. But you have to be lucky to be in a position where you can show people you can."
Ettrick has certainly proved she's a cut above the rest. In recent history, she was near the centre of a corruption scandal that many had simply ignored. "It was a large problem, the 'old folks club' mentality that had permeated into the FMF. Overall, I think about 40% of the staff were discovered to be in this strange group that was embezzling funds directly from the budget. It all went to either consultancy services or catering. Mainly catering. People didn't bat an eyelid because they thought that players were either on super specific diets, or they were just in on the embezzlement. The FMF was a very different place by the time the audit was finished. We nearly folded. But I think ultimately it was a good thing - we wouldn't have been playing the calibre of football we are today if we had continued with that level of corruption - and would have never hired Ázëwyn".
Speaking of the success of the Mertagnian football team, they are approximately halfway through what has been a tough qualifying campaign, with the second half kicking off in earnest here in Neorudo to a confusing draw against Xitizian States, who also held Mertagne to a draw on Matchday 1. "I don't want to talk about those two matches in particular. Something's definitely off with those - it felt like we were being eerily mirrored on the pitch. They were also very impolite. However, if you were asking me to summarise the qualifiers as a whole so far, they have certainly been interesting. Perhaps a bit worse than our expectations, but expectations are there to be shattered, and the team has had some high points. Our defeat of Nephara, for example, will probably go down as one of our best games so far. I just hope we can do it again in front of a home crowd."
Ettrick certainly looks sincerely hopeful about the state of the national team. Does she expect them to qualify for the World Cup proper this cycle or next? "I wouldn't bank on it. I think we're at a hard part in our career now, and we might just miss the playoffs once or twice more. However, I think myself, Ázëwyn, and all of our players are aligned in claiming that we want to either qualify for the World Cup or win the Cup of Harmony within three cycles. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation, and the youth talent that is coming up through our system is certainly of a world-class standard. Recently, our U21 team reached the finals of the International Festival of Youth Football, held in Tumbra, and that put us against the types of teams we would be expected to face off against in the upper echelons of WCC competition."
I try to pivot back to her personal life, but fail to do so. Is the job everything to her? "In a way, yes. I can't say I have much else going on. I don't have a partner, I've got a few friends but I'm in the arse-end of the multiverse every other week so I rarely see them, and I don't really deal well with being bored. So, yes - the job is almost everything to me. If I got fired or quit, I'd quite like to go and manage somewhere else. I'm sure somewhere in Farfadillis would have me."
I ask whether her temper has cooled since the death of her mother late last year. "If anything, it's made me more angry at the world in general. I'm not the religious type, so I'm fairly certain I'm not going to see her again. She was religious enough for the both of us, however, some very particular sect indigenous faith that I'm embarrassed to say I can't name from memory. If it turns out she's correct, I'm hopeful that I'll see her in whatever afterlife she's saved me a seat in. But for now, I'm angry at the world for taking her away from me. So I channel it into my management style. The media is actually a bit bored of it by now. But the players aren't. I squeeze every last drop of potential out them, and alongside Ázëwyn, we make sure that this rag-tag group of footballers is performing at at least 10KPB above what they should be."
Ettrick's relationship with manager Ázëwyn Fëanáro is certainly an interesting one. Kristie claims to have had a poster of Fëanáro in her room as a child - is it weird working alongside your childhood hero? "Of course it is. I was often starstruck at times when she arrived. A miracle, really, to think even I could be star-struck. But I was. And of course, being an elf, she hadn't aged a day, whereas I'd gotten a damn sight more haggard since my days on the pitch. That's just life, though. But Ázëwyn's a good friend now, and we work well together - typical 'good cop, bad cop' affair. Sometimes we mix it up though, and when the weather's right, she can be a meaner cop than me."
I wrap up the interview and ask what she plans to do in the event of retirement. "I'd love a family. A proper one. No offence to those that put the work in, but I haven't had the most stable support structure in my life. Obviously I'm not getting any younger, so I think I'd like to adopt. Preferably someone from a similar background to myself. And then after that? Bask in the glory of my legacy. Hopefully it'll include some WCC silverware, but if it doesn't, I'll be happy that I've helped mould the team for the next generation to take over. Well, maybe not take over, Ázëwyn might still fancy being in the hot seat. But hey, she's not getting any younger."
Kristie Ettrick was interviewed in Neorudo, Touchpoint for Inkblot Magazine by journalist Itzalle Stihrrup.
(85’ Leona 
); Kæja, Tinni 
(72’))
(28’) 
