12:12pm Thursday 3rd May 2012
By Graham Moody
Jonathan Parr has admitted life without football is going to be a strange experience after the Crystal Palace utility man ended his own personal marathon on Saturday.
The Norwegian has clocked up an impressive 73 games since last March after playing half the season in Norway with Alesund before signing for Palace in August.
Since then, his biggest break between matches has been eight days and only Paddy McCarthy and Wilfried Zaha have made more than his 44 Eagles appearances this term.
But now the Championship season is over, the 23-year-old, who could feature for Norway later this month, admitted life without a football match would be odd.
“It will be a bit strange,” he said.
“In a way, it will be OK to do something else and to go home for a while and go on vacation with the girlfriend.
“But I guess in a week I will start to miss the games and training and things like that.
“I knew it was going to be difficult playing half the season in Norway then going straight into the Championship season where there are more games than I am used to – there are only 30 in a season in Norway.
“But this is what we want to do, to play football as a job, it is something we really enjoy.
“I have been trying to do everything right and keep doing the same things the whole season.
“I have stuck with that and not been injured and been able to play a lot so it has been a good season.”
Parr will not be getting bored though as his attention has already switched from the pitch to books since Saturday’s season-ending 2-1 defeat to Cardiff City.
He is currently studying for a degree in business management and has two exams this month as he catches up on work he had to postpone during the season.
“I didn’t take any last December as I had just moved here and there were a lot of things to sort out so now I have to do two exams this semester,” he added.
“I am doing it through on-line study with a school in Norway and I want to try and keep doing it but it might be difficult doing exams in December with the games here then.”
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