“C’mon, Reds – big effort,” Nails urged his team, before the kick-off at Whitecross Junior School. “We’ve gotta win this. Let’s get at ’em!”
The captain was not strictly correct in stating that this was a must-win game for Redfield Primary, but Nails did not like to put his trust in mathematics. It was not exactly his favourite subject. Mr Smith had assured the players that three points for a victory would make them safe from relegation, although one point for a draw might prove enough. A defeat, however, would send them down.
Nails did not need to say anything more to their new goalkeeper. He just shook a fist at his brother as if in encouragement, but Simon knew what that really meant. It was a reminder of the threat made to him the previous night as he was getting into his pyjamas. Nails had barged into Simon’s tiny bedroom and made it quite clear what was expected of him the next morning. He’d thrown the blankets and pillow onto the floor and forced a half-naked Simon to his knees.
“Just look at the state of your bed, Zero.” He twisted Simon’s head to face it. “What do we want from you tomorrow? A clean sheet! Got it?”
Nails slammed the door behind him as he left the room, leaving his final words ringing in Simon’s ears.
“. . .Or else!”
A convoy of cars had transported the Reds into the city suburb. Simon chose to travel with Ollie’s parents, along with Sadiq. Simon could see now why Ollie was so tall: both his mother and father were built like telegraph poles.
“I didn’t expect Ollie to be in a relegation battle as soon as he arrived at Redfield,” said his father with a chuckle. “Nor a Cup Final, too, against Princeton, of all people!”
“I’ve not been picked for that yet, Dad,” Ollie reminded him.
“Oh, I do hope so,” said his mother. “It will be lovely to see your old friends again so soon, won’t it?”
Ollie exchanged glances with Simon and Sadiq. He had already told them about the bullying he’d suffered at Princeton School, if only to help Sadiq feel a bit better. He even invented excuses to stay off school, which was why he had missed the Princes’ previous cup games.
“Um, I’m not sure they’ll be all that pleased to see me,” he muttered. “You know what some of them were like. . .”
Ollie tailed off. Although his parents were well aware of the problems for him at Princeton – which had been their main reason for moving to the village of Redfield – it was not something he wished to discuss in the car.
Ollie was glad that Simon came to his rescue by changing the subject. “Nice clean car, this, Mr Kenning,” he began. “The back seat of ours has got dog hairs all over it!”
Ollie and Sadiq had been given spare red kit to wear for their debuts, although Ollie’s shirt was rather too small for him. It was uncomfortably tight, and he could not even tuck it into his shorts. As Ollie waited for the referee’s whistle to kick off, he gave Sadiq a signal to be ready to put their little plan into action.
When Jake tapped the ball to him, Ollie clipped it out towards the right touchline for Sadiq to collect. Unfortunately, the ball went to a white shirt instead and, four quick passes later, it was spinning in the back of the Reds’ net. They were 1-0 down in record time, and Simon had still not touched the ball.
“Huh! There goes yer clean sheet, Zero,” growled Nails, after shouting abuse at Ollie for giving the ball away. “You can use yer hands, y’know, in goal.”
“You should’ve said,” Simon answered back. “I will do, next time, then.”
And he did. His very first touch of the ball in the school team came a couple of minutes later when he pulled off a magnificent save, hurling himself high to his right to turn the ball over the crossbar with his fingertips.
“Not bad, our kid,” conceded Nails, grinning sheepishly. “I’ll give yer that one.”
Nails headed the corner clear, but the Whites continued to dominate the game and keep Simon busy. It was quite a while before the Reds managed a shot at goal, but when they did, Katie’s tame effort skimmed well wide of the target. Neither winger had seen much of the ball, and the first time Sadiq tried to run with it, he was crowded out by defenders and lost possession.
“Pass it, Sadiq!” cried Mr Smith, pacing the touchline nearby in frustration. “Make the ball do the work.”
Unlike Redfield, the home side had little to play for apart from pride in their own performance. The Whites were safely in mid-table, having lost as many matches as they had won, but they were keen to end the season on a victory high.
Nails and Emma, at the heart of the Reds’ defence, had to remain fully alert to danger, and the other players were often needed to help out at the back, too, including the forwards. Ollie’s extra height was an asset when defending corners, and Simon was grateful when Jake cleared the ball off the line in a goalmouth scramble.
“Thanks,” he gasped. “Owe you that one.”
“Right, you can take it out of your pocket money!” Jake told him, grinning.
The Reds’ equaliser, therefore, came as a complete surprise to both teams.
They managed to gain their first corner of the match with just a few minutes to go before half-time when a shot from Ryan, playing on the right side of midfield, took a deflection for a corner. Ryan trotted forward to take the kick himself, but Sadiq was having none of that.
“Leave it to me,” he told Ryan. “You get in the box.”
Sadiq’s well-practised accuracy with the dead-ball now paid off in fine style. He lofted the ball high into the goalmouth and it sailed over the heads of everyone – except that of his intended target.
“Watch that big kid!” screamed the keeper.
That was about all anybody did – just watch. Ollie barely even had to jump. Tensing his neck muscles, his head snapped forward like the spring of a mousetrap and the ball smacked onto his broad forehead. Its next contact made a loud thwack against the rippling net behind the helpless goalkeeper.
“Tim-ber!” cried Nails, leaping up onto Ollie’s shoulders in raucous celebration and sending them both tumbling to the ground.
Ollie had most of the breath squeezed out of him as other players ran to join the party and piled on top of the heap of bodies in the penalty area. Only Katie kept her distance.
“Huh!” she muttered. “Just jammy!”
“Well done!” Mr Smith said at half-time. “A draw will probably be good enough, remember, but a game is never over till the final whistle. Don’t relax.”
There was little chance of the Reds having the luxury of relaxing. The Whites pressed hard to try and regain their lead but, if they managed to find a way through the well-organised defence, they came up against a goalkeeper in top form. Simon’s handling of the ball was so good that there wasn’t a single fumble.
He pulled off his best save when a shot was deflected by Ryan. Simon was wrong-footed for a moment, but he recovered to grab the ball at full stretch and held on to it as two opponents closed in, ready to pounce on any rebound.
“Rave save!” cried Jake.
Simon grinned and threw the ball clear, finding Katie with some space, for once, on the left wing. The Whites were caught out by the long accurate throw, having committed too many players forward in their last attack. Katie wasted no time in making good progress along the touchline before cutting inside towards goal. She could well have passed the ball to Ollie, who was calling for it, but she fancied the chance to grab the glory for herself.
“Man on!” bellowed Ollie, warning her that she was about to be tackled, but she ignored that too.
As Katie drew her left foot back to shoot, her world was suddenly turned upside-down. She sprawled across the ground in an untidy heap, with no idea where the ball had gone.
“Penalty!” shouted many of the Reds’ players and supporters, including Mr Smith, but the referee turned a deaf ear to such claims.
“Corner-kick,” he called out, as Katie gingerly picked herself up.
Sadiq took the corner and swung the ball into the area towards Ollie, but there was to be no repeat of their previous successful double act. Ollie out-jumped his marker, but the bodily contact in mid-air caused him to head the ball over the crossbar.
“Unlucky!” cried Mr Smith. “Good effort.”
That proved to be their last attempt on goal, but the Whites had not finished yet. As the referee checked his watch they launched another attack, which was only ended by Emma’s foul on their number nine as he tried to take the ball past her.
The Reds formed a defensive wall to protect their goal, but it only served to block Simon’s view. As the shooter made contact, some of the so-called bricks in the wall ducked out of the way of the missile, and Simon did not see the ball until it was too late. He didn’t even have time to move. He could only watch, like everyone else, as the ball thumped against the post and bounced back into play, for Nails to hoof it away out of danger.
That proved to be the last kick of the match, and both teams had to be content with one point apiece from a 1-1 draw.
“We’ll have to wait now, until we know the other results,” Mr Smith told his players. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
Nails wrapped an arm around Simon as they headed towards the changing rooms. “You did OK in the end, our kid,” he grinned. “So I’ll let you off about that early goal.”
Simon took the lack of “Zero” to mean that he was in his brother’s good books for a change.
“I just hope Anil’s back in goal for the final,” he said. “He deserves a medal more than me.”
“Rubbish!” Nails retorted. “You’re our number one now!”
Simon sighed. “Oh, well – guess that’s better than having a big, round zero on the back of my shirt. . .”