Listen. The members of our soccer team are all fine, upstanding kids with a wide range of talents (small confession: I’m making assumptions here since I don’t know any of them well), but with the exception of me, they’re all conscripts. Not one wanted to be in a physical contest with individuals from the St Martin’s team who, as I have observed before, were built like the proverbial public toilets constructed entirely from brick.

How did I know this? Firstly, by the terrified expressions on my teammates’ faces. They wore the look of escaped convicts toiling through a swamp and hearing the baying of guard dogs in the distance. Secondly, they avoided any kind of physical contact throughout the first half. They weren’t even keen on being close to a St Martin’s player. If there had been tables on the pitch they would have jumped on them and shrieked. As it was, they simply parted before the first St Martin’s attack. There were muttered cries of, ‘Sorry, am I in your way?’ and one of my defenders even produced a red carpet for the opposition to pound along. I exaggerate only slightly. In consequence, I found four St Martin’s attackers bearing down on me. Think of a herd of elephants charging a mouse and you’ll get the idea.

Now I don’t want to give the impression I was brave and my teammates were sooks. But I had one huge advantage over them. Motivation. I channelled Andrew’s words. Destry Camberwick was standing behind me in the goal: pure, innocent and beautiful. They were going to kick the ball into her face. I am the keeper of her face, I said to myself. She will not suffer. I WILL NOT LET HER SUFFER. It’s possible I gave a banshee scream. I rushed off my line and flung myself at the ball, gathering it from the toe of the forward and into my stomach, holding on for dear life. The forward tripped over my body, raking his studs along the side of my face as he did so, and crashed into the goal post.

The post was fine, the forward not quite so. He had to be carried off and they almost needed a crane. Thirty seconds gone and I’d already got rid of one of them. Even though I’m not very good at maths, I was able to calculate that I could reduce their team to zero in about five minutes if I kept this up. This would result in my team having eleven players against none. Even Milltown could score one goal against no opposition in eighty-five minutes.

Couldn’t it?

Unfortunately, I hadn’t known about substitutions. We didn’t have substitutes. St Martin’s had ten lined up, all of whom looked like they’d sacrifice their own mothers to get onto the pitch. One promptly took off his tracksuit (a tracksuit!) and warmed up along the touchline. Luckily, no sacrifices took place, as far as I could tell.

I tipped the ball over the bar, around the posts, I flung myself hither and yon. I saved a penalty. Andrew later said that for large parts of the first half, many in my team sat down and left me to it. A few checked their phones and caught up on Facebook and Twitter.

We almost reached half-time without conceding a goal, but a few minutes before the break, St Martin’s got a corner. Their winger swung the ball in towards the penalty spot and I came to collect it. I timed my jump well and the ball was nearly in my grasp when all the lights went out. When I came to, I was flat on my back and the ball was in the net. Mr Broadbent’s face loomed above me, which was kinda scary because I wasn’t expecting it. To be honest it’s a bit scary at the best of times.

‘You all right, Rob?’ he said. I grunted and he stuck an ice-cold sponge into my face which I also wasn’t expecting. ‘That was a clear foul,’ he muttered. ‘That kid led with his elbow and caught you a real cracker in the face. Should’ve been sent off. Instead we’re one goal down. Can you get to your feet?’

I did, but only because he brandished the ice-cold sponge in his right hand like a man prepared to use it. I staggered a little, but luckily the referee blew his whistle for half-time, so I sat down again. The rest of the team joined me. From what I could see through my one good eye (the other was closing rapidly), they were remarkably fresh and clean. I resembled a small mudslide.

Mr Broadbent cleared his throat for his half-time motivational speech.

‘You’re all useless dropkicks,’ he said.

Not the most motivational of starts, in my humble opinion.

‘Fight, guys. Fight,’ he continued. ‘Take a leaf from Rob’s book. Some of you haven’t broken sweat and look at Rob’s face. Look at it. It’s shocking. It’s disgustingly bloody and battered …’

I didn’t like the sound of that. I almost asked him to keep quiet and hit me with the sponge again. But his words faded away. I was tired. I was so, so tired.

It’s probably wise to draw a veil over the second half. We lost four–nil, even though the rest of the team did actually start to fight. Maybe Mr Broadbent knew something about motivation after all. The trouble was, the St Martin’s players were fit and we weren’t. We ran out of the little steam we owned and were no more than walking wounded in the last ten minutes of the match – the ten minutes when they added those extra three goals.

St Martin’s was thrilled. For large parts of the game they weren’t much better than us lowly Milltownians, at least as far as the scoreline was concerned. So once they beat us, all was right with the world again. They went back to their Olympic swimming pool, their sports stadia and their digital entertainment centre knowing the social order was reassuringly intact.

But we’d experienced pride. We’d given it our best, and losing only four–nil felt … well, to be honest, it felt like victory.

It was just a pity Destry Camberwick wasn’t there to share it. She got sick ten minutes before kick-off and apparently her mother came and took her home. I would’ve laughed, but my face was too battered and bruised and painful.