With ten minutes to go until the game kicked off, Harry Armstrong walked into the Hawkstone dressing room and looked around.

Jamie could already feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up. Armstrong was a general about to send his troops into battle. Before that, he had one final message for his men.

“I don’t have to tell you how big this game is for the club,” he said. “I want you to put all of that other stuff out of your mind and just take a look at this dressing room…

“Look around you,” he said, each word laced with meaning. “You are a team. And you should be proud to walk out there tonight with these men on your side. I look at each one of you and I wouldn’t swap you for any other player in the world… If I were facing the biggest challenge of my life, I would want you alongside me in the trenches,” he said, pointing to his big goalkeeper. “And you, and you…”

Harry Armstrong went around the whole team before he finally pointed at Jamie.

“And you,” he said to Jamie.

Despite everything Jamie had been through, Harry didn’t single him out. He didn’t make any special reference to him. He just treated Jamie like any other member of the team.

And Jamie liked that.

It was all he had ever wanted to be. A member of the team.

Jamie Johnson strode down the tunnel, up towards the light of the pitch ahead. The clicking of the studs matched the rhythm of his beating heart.

And then, as he made his way out on to the pitch, the music started. The same music that had set the adrenaline pulsing through Jamie when he’d watched Champions League games on TV as a kid.

As he stood shaking hands with the Real Madrid players, humming the music as it blasted out around the Hawkstone ground, Jamie imagined football fans all over the globe getting ready to watch this game with their tea.

Dillon and Robbie would be at home, kicking a ball around, having a little wrestle, making their predictions. Stonefish had already told him he would be tuning in from Spain, tucking into a doubly big bowl of baked beans at the same time.

For a second, Jamie’s stomach lurched as he considered his dad watching from prison. And then, almost immediately, he was calmed by the instinctive certainty that, from somewhere, his granddad Mike would be watching over him too. As long as that was the case, Jamie knew he’d be OK.

Slowly but surely, it began to dawn on Jamie: tonight – this match – Hawkstone United v Real Madrid – would be the defining moment of his football career.