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WE HAD NO RESERVE. Western had only just made two teams in Eleventh and Twelfth Grade. We’d had an open day that first Sunday, to get more members. Free sausages and a goal-shooting contest. Three new members joined but one didn’t show up again.
I don’t think she’d paid, anyway.
I went to the first practice, Thursdays at six-thirty. We worked on passing, footwork, headers, corner kicks, throw-ins. We got a pep talk about team-work. It was okay. Kind of fun, I guess. I liked that organised sort of stuff. And no-one was getting uptight about winning or losing. I even sort of made a friend. It went like this:
“Hi, ah, I’m the other fullback.”
“I know.”
“Yeah well, hah, s’pose you do. – Ah, my name’s Jamie. James Wigram.”
“So?”
“So you’re Taylor.., someone, I guess?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah..., right. So; we’re the fullbacks then!”
“Looks like it.”
“Yeah.”
“Should be good.”
“I reckon. So, like, what’s your second name?”
“Le Cren.”
“Uh.”
Well, I learned someone’s name, at least.
I went home. I’d missed something on TV for that practice. (Didn’t we have a video? Ha! Ask Dad why not.) I went and shut myself in my room. I listened to the radio and did some drawing. Didn’t think about soccer. Wiped it from my tortured mind. (Well: tried to.)
#
SATURDAY CAME. IT was lovely and fine. Good start. Me and Luke biked down to the clubrooms. “When’s your game.” I asked him as we went.
“After yours.”
“Oh. But that won’t be, like, until ten-thirty at the earliest?”
“Yeah. I’ve come to watch you.”
“Oh.” My heart sank. I didn’t fancy being watched. It had never occurred to me that anyone would actually want to watch me play.
We arrived and I went in to change. There was hubbub in the changing rooms. The place seemed to echo something awful, bringing out the loudest of the loud. And the loudest was a guy called Fulton. I never figured out whether that was his first name or his last. He was our striker and our captain and basically.., well, to put it bluntly: he was a jerk. Today he had a ball in there and he was goofing around, pretending to be a famous basketball star. He’d go from end to end, bouncing the ball hard on the concrete floor. It made an awful noise. “...and Magic is really on form today! Look at that intercept!! And he shoots...!” Fulton shot the ball up at the end wall. It bounced off and hit the light bulb. It broke with an electric pop!, showering the floor with little bits of thin glass. The room went dark, lit only by the pathetic bit of daylight that bled in through the ventilator windows.
“Oo-ooo-oo!!!” said everyone (except me). Next thing Tony was in there. – “Who did this?” – “What’s a ball doing in here?!” – all that adult stuff. But when he found out it was Fulton he eased right back. Fulton had been with the club since he was eight. He was our star player.
“You should know better,” Tony told him, and took the ball away. He came back with a brush and scoop and cleaned up the glass. Fulton just grinned behind Tony’s back and did a little dance, making faces. Tony left. We finished changing in the dark and went out to play. Our boots rattled on the floor like claws.
Animals, I thought, we were all animals.
#
THE GAME WAS AGAINST Pike’s Point, - rich kids from the eastern side of the city. They all arrived in a mini-bus and came springing out. I was amazed. They all had matching tracksuits. All of them. Western had them, but they were optional. Okay, maybe they were optional at Pike’s Point too, but they all had them, and they all looked so new.
Not that it mattered. I mean: they were just another team, weren’t they?
They all looked sharp and ready. They did a warm-up. They stripped down for action. Then they got into a circle and sang. Holy Huh!? They actually had a team song?
We watched, amazed. Some of us giggled, some of us sneered. I noticed Fulton. He was grinning and mimicking them. I even heard one of our boys muttering, “Pansies!”
Then Pike’s Point Grade Eleven came onto the pitch and totally thumped us.
#
THEY WON THE TOSS AND kicked off. The ball went out to their right wing and he was away. He dodged Arnie, outran our half-backs, and was soon bearing down on me. I waited till he was in range, then went at him. He just seemed to dance around me. I turned in time to see him kick the first goal of the day. It had taken them one minute.
His team all cheered and jumped around. He ran back past me, grinning. I felt awful. It felt like my whole team was looking at me. I didn’t look up, didn’t want to catch anyone’s eye.
Kick-off number two. They tried to get the ball back to the same guy but our strikers were a little quicker and intercepted. The play went our way, then theirs, then our way, then theirs. Left, right, left. Finally, from a general mess in the middle, their striker broke through and started coming towards me and Taylor. Taylor trundled out to meet her. Whump!
Our guys were ready for it. Fulton scooped the ball down and made a break for their goal. There was a scramble on their goal-line. It ended in a corner kick for us.
I waited. This was good. An equaliser, maybe.
No. The corner kick went wrong and the play started charging around the pitch again. Next thing their wing had it again and the way was wide open towards me. I ran at him straight off, hoping maybe to give him less time to figure me out and plan his swerve. So he stopped, dabbling with the ball a moment, waiting for me to get closer. I didn’t like that, but what could I do? I just went right at him.
He danced to my left. I took a swipe at the ball, tipped it, but he scooped it away from the sideline and went on. I didn’t want to look. I looked elsewhere. Then I spotted a familiar face on the sideline, only three metres away; Luke.
“Get after him!” he yelled.
I gave Luke a hopeless kind of look, like he was expecting me to grow wings or something, then went after their wing. Useless, of course. I saw the kick. It rose, flew nicely, and sailed right into our goal. A lucky shot. Real lucky.
I got back in position, puffing. “Lucky shot.” I said to Taylor, “Real lucky shot!”
He didn’t say anything.
#
FIVE MINUTES LATER Pike’s Point was breathing down our necks again. They skirmished the ball right in close but our goalie, Nathan, managed to punch it away over the end line. Corner kick. The opposition regrouped fast. Our guys just sort of ran around a lot, panicking. I heard Tony shouting, “Western! Mark a player!”
The kick came in.
Chaos. Thump-boomp-whomp. Everyone was just swiping away at it. Then came a Whump from Taylor, but it ricocheted straight off one of the Pike’s Point guys. (‘Ouch!’ I thought.) It went over the back line. Goal kick to us.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief. The enemy were pulling back fast. Nathan tapped it to Taylor and away it went, up and over. Man that guy could kick!
But two minutes later the ball was coming back again. I felt a lump rising in my throat. It was that winger again. I just felt glued to the spot.
Then suddenly Taylor ran past me. He was taking over! I swore and went after him, guessing what was going to happen next. The wing went around Taylor like a river around a rock and I was right there. Wham-Bam! The ball went spinning in-field. Next thing their striker gathered it up and shot their third goal. Three-nil. The whistle blew for half-time.
#
TONY WAS VERY CALM. He said all these soothing things. He gave a few tips, “Mark their players. Don’t bunch so much. If you see three of your mates in there then hang back, watch the action. And pass! If it’s getting tight, look around and pass! Now that right wing of theirs, number three; he’s really dangerous. Kylie,” (she was our left half-back) “I want to see you sticking to him like glue!...”
Some of us laughed.
Tony sort of smiled, realising he’d said something funny. “I mean mark him. Follow him. Stop him getting that ball!! You can do it! You can all do it!” No mention was made of left-footed fullbacks that couldn’t tackle for nuts, though.
I had a drink and stood around, avoiding everyone’s gaze. We were three down, and I knew why. Tony gave us a final word.
“We can still win this game! Get in there and do it!”
We got in there. We got one goal. So did they.
For once it wasn’t my fault. They just came in and kept at us. For what seemed like ten minutes they hammered our defenses. Our half-backs were there with me and Taylor, and one of our strikers too. But finally one of their shots went in. Then at the last moment they scored their sixth!
I was glad I wasn’t goalie. Without Nathan we would have lost sixteen to one.
The final whistle blew. I sank inside.
Fulton called “Three cheers for Pike’s Point!”
“H-rah, h-rah, h-rah!”
“Three cheers for Western!” called their captain.
“H-rah, h-rah, h-rah!”
“And one for the Ref’!”
“Hurrah!”
We jogged off. I kept going, all the way to the changing room. I ripped off my boots and stuck on my runners and I was out of there in about thirty seconds flat. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen after that, and I didn’t care. I went out, unlocked my bike, and split the scene.