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I FELT ILL ON THURSDAY. Practice; I dreaded it. I dreaded the team. I dreaded what someone was going to say to me. But straight after tea I got out dad’s boots and stuck them on my bike and went on down. I tried to just blend in, but Tony picked me out straight off.
“Where’d you get to last Saturday, Jamie?”
“Home.” I said, like it was just the most obvious thing. But I’d already guessed I had been expected to hang around after the game for something.
“Well,” began Tony patiently, as if he were talking to the intellectually impaired, “we usually de-brief afterwards. We go over the game, review how it went, and build strategies.”
I said “Oh.” like it was a complete surprise to me. Like I just hadn’t known.
“The main thing,” said Tony, not letting up on me, “was that we all agreed we had to work on our ball skills, passing and tackling. So let’s all start with a gentle warm up...”
So we worked on it. Funny; I seemed to be getting a whole heap of turns at tackling. Or so it seemed. Actually we all got to tackle each other. Tony tried to impart a bit of strategy: “If someone’s coming at you with the ball, the idea is to take them on, force them to pass, and the sooner the better, before they can get organised. So that brings us to marking. Mark your opposition. Shadow them. Keep the heat on! Intercept, intercept, intercept!”
We did some stuff on intercepting, then time was up. Tony caught up with me on my way back to change. He said, “Don’t get too worked up about last Saturday. We had a toughie to start with. Pike’s Point are a strong team, and that winger of theirs is one of the best I’ve seen. You did okay.”
“Thanks.” I mumbled.
I did 'okay'? Yeah, sure.
#
FRIDAY. WE HAD ART. I was teamed up with Lu Wong to do a ‘Collaboration Piece’. Sculpture, in other words. As we worked she told me about the art class she had just started. Thursday nights. It sounded great. I wanted to do it. Then I remembered; I had soccer practice on Thursdays.
I usually got a buzz out of art but that day I just felt stink.
#
SATURDAY: GAME 2. It was fine, but the ground was wet as! It had rained overnight. I’d lain awake, listening to it on the roof, hoping for a cancellation. No such luck.
The team all arrived. It was another ‘home game’, on our pitch. We got changed and headed out for a warm-up. The other team showed up. Wakefield. They admitted they were one player down, which made it ten against our eleven. My spirits lifted.
Tony called us into a huddle for a pep talk. Then he got us doing this silly thing, “Western! Western! Rah, Rah, RAH!” before we all went jogging onto the field. Once again I found myself on the same spot I’d been on exactly a week ago, where the two edges of the penalty area came to meet at a muddy trampled spot. I glanced across at Taylor on the other corner. He just looked at me blankly.
The whistle blew. For a moment I felt sick in my guts, but we got off to a good start, pushing Wakefield back again and again, and I began to feel better.
There seemed to be a lot of parents on the sideline that day, all yelled and shouted. Some of the Wakefield parents were pretty forthcoming.
“Come on, Rai! Get your bum into gear!”
“Sonya! Come on, you dope! Move!”
And one that really got to me first time I heard it, “Aw-uh, Jamie! Ya moron!”
Then I realised that it was meant for one of their players. Their Jamie. I never figured out exactly which one it was but my heart went out to him all the same.
I didn’t have much to do that game, except get cold feet. I spent most of the game shifting from one foot to the other, squelch, squish, squelch, squish... The action came to me maybe five times, and I only had to take on two tackles directly. The first one I whumped, the second one I wham-bam-ed. Amazingly that second tackle left me with the ball. I advanced with a clear run towards the halfway line, then as they regrouped to take me on I hastily passed it aside to Kylie. It didn’t result in a goal, but we did all right in the end. Two-nil to Western.
Briefly, after the game, I felt part of the team. We were all buzzing and Tony talked to us, giving out a lot of compliments, “Nice team-work among the strikers, ... I saw some good tackling today, right into it! ... Jamie; a good pass, ...” He mentioned me. He mentioned me!
#
GAME 3 WAS CANCELED due to heavy rain. It even snowed on the hills just out of town. I stayed home, alone in my room, and did some drawing. Later we went out shopping. There’s a Whitcoulls in the mall. I stood gazing at the charcoal and the art paper and the top-quality pastels (at $4.95 a piece!). And all those fabulous art books! I took one down; Fantasy & Science Fiction Art Techniques, and flicked slowly through it. Wonderful stuff, just wonderful. Then I thought about that art class, and suddenly felt stink.
#
AT OUR NEXT TEAM PRACTICE Tony took us through some stuff, and when we were done he called us all in. “Next week we’re playing Holloway Valley, it’s our first away game, so get here at eight-thirty, sharp! The transport’s been rostered, so don’t keep them waiting. Don’t let your team down. Now...,” he paused, sounding genuinely sad, “..I’m sorry to say that I won’t be here for your game. I’ll be out of town; - a work commitment that I just can’t avoid. This Saturday Fulton will be in charge. So do well, play together, and support each other. Okay?”
#
SATURDAY. THE FROSTS had begun and the air seemed to cut through my face as I biked down the hill. It cut through my gloves too. By the time I reached the grounds I was blue and white. Not our team colours!
There were three cars waiting – the parent roster. It was a fair drive to Holloway Valley. Slowly the rest of my team arrived. None of them, I noticed, arrived on a bike. Their parents dropped them off in the car.
I waited and waited, not knowing which roster car I was supposed to be in. My toes were killing me. Finally we were all there, eleven cold kids.
Fulton came up to me just before we were ready to leave.
“Jamie, my man!” he said, real cool like.
“What?” I said. Pretty snappy like.
“Ooo, who’s touchy today? I just ... aw, forget it.”
“Forget what? What?”
“Ah nothing. Just nothing. You stay fullback then.” He started moving away.
I followed him, “You were thinking of changing me?!”
“Nar, nar, not really.” He got into his car. His father’s car. It was full. I backed off, confused. I found another car with a place, and our little convoy started out. Our driver got a bit lost and we were late getting there. The Holloway Valley sports fields were still in shadow. Frost everywhere. We late-comers had to rush to get on field. There was no time for the old “Rah, Rah, Rah!’
Fulton won the toss and chose to play from the east end - the cold end. I hated him for it, but then I soon figured out why. The sun was rising behind the trees and beamed almost straight down the field into the eyes of our opposition. Fulton kept pushing the ball out to the north-eastern side of the field, our right wing, and attacking Holloway out of the sun!
I though he was a swine, but it worked. We were three up at half time. Three-nil! Best lead we’d ever had. The whistle blew and I was only too glad to get out of the shadows. At least the frost was finally going by then.
We stood in the sun, like a clump of animals sharing body heat, sipping Milo.
I plucked up my courage and spoke to Fulton. “You said I could change?”
He didn’t answer directly, “Oh yeah? Where would you like to play?”
“Left wing?” I said, really hopeful. I smiled my best smile. My best begging-dog smile. He considered it.
Then he shook his head. “No, I need Arnie up there. We’re going to win this one. Maybe next time?”
#
SECOND HALF. HOLLAWAY came back at us with a vengeance. They worked hard, making use of the slanting sun to launch attack after attack. Arnie fell back. Fulton fell back. We all lost our cool. After only five minutes Holloway scored off a penalty kick.
But I wasn’t worried. We were still two up.
Then they scored again. Taylor fudged a tackle and the shot that followed was just too good for Nathan.
After that Fulton started shouting at us, shouting at whoever had the ball, “Geez!” “Come on!” “Get it up there! Pass!” “Aw pass it ya moron!!” and stuff like that. After about ten minutes of this I think we were all feeling a bit on edge. But we held them back for a good while, then suddenly the tables turned. Once again Holloway were on the attack. Me and Taylor moved into our usual defence mode. He went out first, I tagged along, backing him up. We hadn’t discussed it. It had just developed. It was a case of ‘Big’, followed by ‘Quick’. (Or to put it more realistically – ‘Big’, followed by ‘Useless’.)
The attacking Holloway striker passed left just before Taylor tried to tackle him and their left-wing raced it onwards. I veered right from behind Taylor, getting away off position. The winger was swinging in now, pretty much alone. There was just me, then Nathan, and I was going in a circle, almost chasing this guy. I had to stop him. It was kamikaze time. I went straight for him, throwing a wild swipe at the ball and his feet. He staggered a bit and over-ran the ball. It was mine, but still rolling goal-wards. I saw another two of the enemy coming in fast, going for what was shaping up to be a dead easy shot. I tried to beat them to it, running straight into our own goal. There was no time for a Taylor style whump! They were right beside me. I could never have turned it around.
So I tapped it on back to Nathan.
Well, I tried to. It was more than a tap. I was trying to keep it ahead of the enemy. It shot past Nathan. Own-goal!
I felt sick, instantly. I went “Arrrrr-uh!!” and thumped my fists into my forehead. Everyone else went “Arrrrr-uh!!!” too. Except theirs were angry. Real angry.
Next minute Fulton was right in my face, screaming and swearing something awful. He was so mad I thought he was actually going to hit me. The referee ran in, looking set to break up a fight, but Fulton suddenly stormed off, hissing.
The Holloway players moved back to their end. A free goal for them! Equalised!
They were remarkably restrained about it.
My team followed, groaning and growling and muttering. One of the guys swung past me briefly. I think it was Ryan. “Bad luck.” he said quietly. That was the only sympathy I got.
#
WE HAD TEN MINUTES left. Play resumed. I paced my patch, feeling all knotted up inside. I had that old lump-in-the-throat again. I wanted to fix it. Fix my error. Fix the score. I kept remembering my kick. The force of it. Too much! Just a touch too much!
Damn, damn, damn!
The play was coming back. I was getting tense, and nervous, and angry too.
They were getting closer. Closer. Out of a messy mid-field scramble came a loose ball. I must have been creeping up the field all that time. I was well out of position. Anyway it came my way and I went after it, straight up the pitch, and gave it the old Taylor treatment. Best kick I’d every done, I reckon. It went over everybody. Tina took to it, dodged two of the other team, and took a long shot at goal.
Missed.
There was only about two minutes left. The whistle blew and the Holloway goalie kicked off. We intercepted, rolled them back to their goal-line again, then lost possession. After that it was a text-book advance. They had this one girl, name of Maia it sounded like. One of their strikers. She got onto the ball and began a dream run.
“Maia! Maia! Maia!” they were chanting.
She came through us like a rolling rock through long grass. I glanced at Taylor, expecting him to be getting ready, but he was hanging back. So I went out alone to tackle her. I didn’t like tackling girls. I was sort of tentative. With a boy I’d just charge right in there. Girls were different. Anyway she sidestepped me easily and shot the last goal of the game, right through the gap between me and Taylor.
“Aww, Jamie!” everyone roared.