by Theo Walcott
‘Nice!’ said Rob. ‘FC Porto away kit, isn’t it, Rodrigo?’
‘Porto good,’ grinned Rodrigo, as they made their way out onto the playground where Mr Wood was waiting. Quite a few people had gathered to watch, and TJ had the feeling that most of them had come to laugh. He saw that Mrs Logan had brought a chair outside and was sitting with a clipboard on her lap.
‘She’s going to give Mr Wood marks out of ten,’ said Rafi.
‘She’ll probably knock a mark off for the hat,’ Tulsi said. Mr Wood was wearing a blue baseball cap, tracksuit bottoms and a faded red T-shirt.
‘OK,’ the teacher said. ‘Let’s make a start. We’ll do three laps of the field and the playground first, to warm up.’
He set off at a gentle jog and TJ was pleased to discover that he was able to keep up easily. Tulsi and Rafi followed a short way behind, but Jamie stopped after the first lap and started walking.
‘Right,’ said Mr Wood when they’d finished. ‘Everyone take a ball.’ Mr Wood, TJ noticed, wasn’t out of breath at all. ‘Now spread out – give yourselves a square around you about two metres each side. Just move the ball around in your square with the bottom of your foot. One foot, then the other. That’s it! It’s like a little dance. Keep jogging. Don’t stop.’
TJ could hear Danny complaining that it was boring, but he didn’t care. He was enjoying himself. He got into a rhythm, pushing the ball first one way, then the other. The rest of the world simply didn’t exist.
‘I said stop, TJ!’ Mr Wood’s voice finally got through to him, and he stood still, embarrassed. ‘Nice work, everyone,’ Mr Wood said. ‘Just pay attention and stop when I say “stop”, OK? Now then . . .’
All the exercises Mr Wood gave them to do were dead simple, but after a while TJ realized that he hardly ever let them stop moving. They dribbled in and out of rows of cones, they jumped between hoops, they passed with one foot and then the other, they controlled the ball with thighs and chests and feet . . .
‘When are you going to play a game, then?’ yelled Danny’s mate Carl, who’d come along to jeer. But TJ knew that they were doing some serious work. And he wasn’t the only one who’d figured that out.
There was a sudden clatter of wheels and TJ saw Tommy and his mates skid to a halt on their skateboards.
‘Mr Wood?’ said Tommy. ‘Is it OK if we join in?’
Mr Wood looked at them. ‘Well, I suppose you’re warmed up already,’ he said. ‘And we’re going to have a game now, to finish off. But next time you come from the start, OK?’
Tommy and his mates grinned and parked their boards.
‘These are the rules,’ Mr Wood said. ‘Once you have the ball under control, no one can take it off you. There are no tackles because we’re playing on a hard surface here. I want to see you control the ball, pass and move. Just like the practice we’ve been doing. TJ, Tulsi, Jamie, Tommy and Rafi, put on these blue bibs. I’ll play with Danny, Rodrigo, Cameron and Jay. We’ll be the Greens.’
‘I’ll go in goal,’ TJ said.
‘You don’t have to,’ Tulsi told him.
‘I want to be a goalie,’ said TJ. ‘Goalies are good. They can save penalties. Everyone loves them.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said Tulsi. ‘But at least it saves us having to argue about it. Now let’s show Mr Wood how absolutely brilliant we are.’
CHAPTER 8
THE FIRST THING that TJ noticed, as Mr Wood’s team kicked off, was that Rodrigo knew how to play football. He was taller than the others, and gangly, but when the ball came to him he controlled it quickly. Then the trouble began. Everyone on Rodrigo’s side began shouting at him.
‘Hey, Rodrigo, go right!’
‘Rodrigo! On the wing!’
‘Watch out, Rodrigo, she’s going to tackle you!’
Rodrigo was confused. TJ had to laugh.
They seemed to have forgotten that Rodrigo only spoke about three words of English. Before Rodrigo had even had a chance to touch it, Tulsi whipped the ball away from his feet and blasted it at Mr Wood’s goal. The ball bounced off Cameron’s knee and shot away towards Tommy. Tommy chased after it but, just as he reached it, Danny stepped across and tackled him. Tommy hit the tarmac and rolled over several times.
Mr Wood blew his whistle and strode angrily towards Danny. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘No tackling. It’s dangerous.’
‘It’s OK, Mr Wood,’ Tommy said, pulling up his trouser leg to reveal all kinds of grazes and scabs and bruises. ‘I fall off my skateboard all the time.’ He grinned. ‘I’m good at falling over.’
‘That’s not the point. Blues, it’s your free kick.’
Rafi placed the ball and stepped back. Tulsi was standing in front of Mr Wood’s goal, waving her arms madly and shouting for the ball. ‘Go on,’ Jamie said, ‘boot it up to her. She’ll just keep going on at you until you do.’
Rafi ran up and smacked the ball as hard as he could. It whistled past Cameron and bounced between Jay’s legs. Tulsi took a couple of touches towards the goal. She did two fancy stepovers, and TJ wondered why, as there was no one to beat except the goalkeeper. She did one, final stepover and then hit her shot. She was looking around to check that everyone was admiring her skill when Mr Wood reached out a long arm and caught the ball effortlessly in one hand, like a basketball player.
Tulsi stared as he rolled it back out to Rodrigo. She had just hit her hardest shot and Mr Wood hadn’t even blinked. She was still staring when Rodrigo cleared the ball and everyone else ran after it.
‘It’s mine,’ shouted Rafi.
‘No, leave it to me,’ Jamie growled.
It was as if they were all playing for their own little teams, TJ thought, watching the knot of players tussling for the ball. You would never have known that Rafi and Jamie were both on his side. Then suddenly Rafi burst away with the ball and dribbled towards the goal.
‘Hey!’ yelled TJ. ‘Where are you going? Don’t—’
It was too late. Rafi shot. TJ watched the ball flying towards him and instinctively went to control it with his foot. Then he remembered he was a goalie and reached out to grab it with his hands. He was too slow. He got a fingertip to it, but it spun behind him and between the posts. While Mr Wood’s team celebrated, Tulsi, Tommy and Jamie all started shouting at Rafi.
‘You’re all rubbish,’ called a voice from outside the fence.
TJ looked over and saw a small bunch of kids from his class. ‘At least we’re trying,’ he said, and he turned and jogged across the playground to retrieve the ball. As he picked it up he saw his brother, Joey, and his dad.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘You’re here.’
‘You still like it in goal?’ asked Joey.
‘Yeah. Why not? And it’s a way to get in the team because the others are really good.’
His dad laughed. ‘Good? That lot? You’ll be lucky if you ever make a team out of them. The tall kid’s not bad, and that red-haired boy, but I reckon you could run rings round them. That girl’s a real goal-hanger. She never moves.’
‘It’s only our first practice,’ TJ said. ‘We’ll get better.’ He picked up the ball and ran back to the game, leaving his family shaking their heads.
Five minutes later Mr Wood called them all together. ‘Well done, everyone,’ he said. ‘You’ve worked really hard. But if you think I’m going to tell you you’re great footballers, well, I’m not.’
TJ’s heart sank. He looked at the others. They all looked as fed up as he felt.
‘None of you can pass the ball to save your lives,’ Mr Wood continued, ‘and some of you don’t even seem to know which way you’re supposed to shoot. But on the other hand, it seems to me that you’ve had a raw deal. There’s been no PE for ages here, and where your football pitch should be there’s a strip of grass that looks like it’s been dug up by a herd of giant moles.’
They all laughed, and TJ suddenly felt a little flicker of hope.
‘I can turn you into a team,’ Mr Wood said. ‘But only
if you’re all prepared to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your lives. I don’t know yet if you’ll be any good, but you will be a team, and then Parkview School will have something to be proud of for a change. How about it? Are you up for it?’
TJ suddenly saw the excitement glittering in Mr Wood’s blue eyes. It seemed to flicker in the air. He could feel it, running through him like electricity, and he realized that the others were feeling the same thing. As he walked home with his family. his dad said, ‘You really want to do this, don’t you, TJ?’
TJ nodded.
‘Well, I did see one good thing out there tonight – your Mr Wood. He seems like he knows what he’s doing.’
‘I told you,’ TJ said.
‘Yeah, you did. And we met quite a few of your mates’ mums and dads while we were there. Nice, friendly people. I reckon if we all got together we could really make things start to happen in this place. But listen, that Mr Wood. Where’s he from?’
‘I don’t know, Dad,’ said TJ. ‘Why?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mr Wilson said. ‘I just had the feeling I’d seen him somewhere before, that’s all.’
CHAPTER 9
IT WAS THE following Monday morning when TJ arrived in the classroom and spotted Rob writing in his notebook. ‘What are you doing now?’ he asked him.
‘I’m finishing the stats from the training last week.’
‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘I didn’t want anyone to see. They’d just make fun of me if they knew.’
‘I bet they wouldn’t. Why don’t you show them?’
Before Rob could say anything, TJ had called Rafi and Jamie over. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Rob’s analysed our training session. It’s brilliant.’
‘It doesn’t need analysing though, does it,’ Jamie said. ‘We were rubbish.’
‘You have to know exactly why you were rubbish,’ Rob said seriously. ‘Look, Rafi, this is you.’ Little black arrows darted about all over the diagram of the pitch. ‘I estimate that you ran about one kilometre in five minutes.’
‘That’s amazing,’ said Rafi, staring at the picture.
‘Yeah,’ said TJ. ‘It’s clever, isn’t it? Rob does this for every game he watches.’
‘Rob’s a bit weird,’ Rafi said. ‘Everyone knows that. What I meant was, it’s good that I ran all that way. I must be fast!’
‘You have to run in the right direction,’ said Jamie. ‘Half the time you don’t even know which way you are running.’
‘I made one little mistake, that’s all,’ Rafi retorted. ‘Hey, what’s that?’
‘It’s Tulsi,’ Rob said. ‘It’s not perfect because I was watching Rafi most of the time, but I think it’s about right.’ They all looked at Rob’s diagram and laughed. All of the arrows were in a very small space next to the goal.
‘Are you talking about me?’ said Tulsi. ‘What are you looking at?’
They explained Rob’s picture to her.
‘I estimate that you ran about a hundred metres in total,’ Rob said. ‘Most strikers in the Premier League run about twelve kilometres in a match.’
‘We’re not in the Premier League, Rob,’ Tulsi said angrily. ‘And I don’t need to run if people pass the ball to me properly, do I? Who said you could spy on us anyway?’
‘What’s all this?’ None of them had noticed Mr Wood entering the classroom. Now he was looking over Tulsi’s shoulder at Rob’s book. ‘It looks like Prozone. Did you do this, Rob?’ Rob shut the book quickly. ‘Clear off, the rest of you,’ Mr Wood said, sitting down beside him. ‘Get your work out and get on with it. And no talking.’
TJ had already figured out that theirs was the only classroom in the whole school where people worked in silence. In fact, he had sometimes had the feeling that it might be the only classroom in the school where anyone worked at all. He had walked past the Reception classroom one morning and seen the teacher knitting while the little kids did exactly as they liked. The noise from the rest of the school echoed along the corridors now, as Mr Wood spoke quietly to Rob. After a few moments, TJ was amazed to see Rob open his book and show something to Mr Wood. Then Mr Wood said something and Rob’s face cracked into a smile.
‘But Rob never smiles,’ hissed Jamie to TJ.
‘Quiet over there,’ snapped Mr Wood.
When he’d finished talking to Rob, Mr Wood went to the front of the class. ‘I’ve been busy this weekend,’ he said. ‘I had a meeting with the PE teacher over at Hillside School. She seems to think they’ve got a decent football team. Perhaps you’d like to tell everyone about them, Rob.’
‘What does he know?’ Danny muttered.
Mr Wood fixed him with a look that made him go bright red, and then pale. It was a look that TJ thought would make a good secret weapon. ‘Go ahead, Rob,’ said Mr Wood.
‘They were . . . they . . .’ Rob stopped. His voice sounded trembly and uncertain.
‘Shall I read it for you?’ Mr Wood offered. ‘Or one of your friends?’
Rob nodded gratefully.
‘I’ll read it if you like,’ TJ said, and Mr Wood handed him the notebook. ‘Runners-up in the Inter Schools League,’ TJ read. He saw that Rob had made a league table just like the ones in the papers, in very tiny black writing. ‘They won nine, drew three and lost none,’ he said. ‘They scored twenty-five goals and let in twelve. I suppose that means they’re very good.’
Rob nodded.
‘Their PE teacher reckons they’ll win the league this year,’ Mr Wood said. ‘She’s called Mrs Singh and she obviously thinks Hillside School is the best school in town. She didn’t actually say so, but I got the impression that she thought Parkview School was the worst school she’d ever come across. She didn’t like the teachers, or the mums and dads, or the kids.’
There were loud mutterings from around the classroom, and for once Mr Wood didn’t order them to be quiet.
‘I know,’ he continued. ‘I told her she was wrong. I told her you were good kids and this was a good school, and I told her you’re just as good at football as they are. So we’re going to take them on, in three weeks’ time, right here on our own pitch.’
‘But, Mr Wood,’ said Tulsi, ‘we haven’t got a pitch.’
CHAPTER 10
‘I’M GOING TO talk to Mr Burrows this morning,’ Mr Wood said. ‘I’m sure when he hears about this he’ll want to get the pitch repaired. And I’m going to ask him to buy us a proper kit too. All you have to do is train hard and do what I say. Don’t look so scared!’
‘But we know them, Mr Wood,’ Tulsi said. ‘We see them in the park. They’re much better than us. That Krissy Barton plays in the Sunday League. She’s brilliant.’
‘Now you listen to me,’ Mr Wood said. ‘I’ve coached a lot of teams and I’ve played in a lot of football matches. There’s nothing you can’t do if you work together. Just imagine how you’ll feel when you beat them!’
TJ tried to imagine it, but he couldn’t. He remembered how the three kids in the park had played, rattling the ball around like a pinball machine. It was impossible to think Parkview could beat them. When they went outside at break time, TJ could see that the others agreed with him. They stood on the edge of the playground, looking at the pitch.
‘I can’t imagine anyone playing on that ever again,’ Tulsi said.
‘It’s just as well,’ agreed Rafi. ‘We’d never beat that lot in a million years.’
‘I don’t know why you’re saying that,’ Rob said.
‘What do you want?’ demanded Tulsi. ‘Why do you keep following us around?’
‘You’re just being mean to him because he told you you don’t run,’ Jamie said. ‘But he’s right about that. You can’t argue with the stats. What do you mean, Rob?’
‘Football is a simple game,’ Rob said. ‘With a coach as good as Mr Wood there’s no reason why you can’t beat them, as long as you do the simple things properly. You know – pass, control, move, shoot. And play like a team. Mr Wood goes
on about it enough. But you don’t actually know if you’ll be good or not. Not yet. So you might as well try.’
‘Well, we still haven’t got a pitch,’ sniffed Tulsi.
And when Mr Wood came back into the classroom after break, it looked as if Tulsi was right after all. Mr Burrows followed Mr Wood into the room.
‘Mr Wood has just been to see me,’ he said, ‘and I’ve come to give you the bad news myself. I’m afraid there’s not the slightest chance of getting the playing field mended. We simply don’t have the money. So we can’t go buying football kit either. I’m very sorry.’
The door swung closed behind him. There was a long silence, then Mr Wood said, ‘I’m sorry too. I really thought . . . Yes, TJ, what is it?’
‘Mr Wood, couldn’t we fix the pitch ourselves? I could borrow some tools from home. We could come to school at the weekend. If we all worked all day, then maybe we could do it.’
Nobody said anything for a moment and then, suddenly, everyone was talking at once.
‘My dad’s got a spade.’
‘I could bring my grandad’s garden roller.’
‘It can’t be that difficult.’
‘Stop!’ said Mr Wood, holding his hands in the air. ‘Some things would still cost money. We’d need turf to fill those holes and—’
‘My mum works in a garden centre,’ said a girl with red curly hair. ‘I could get her to ask if there’s any spare turf.’
TJ looked around the classroom. Suddenly it wasn’t just the people who’d been playing football who were interested. It was everyone! All of them had ideas about how to help.
‘I bet we could mend the kit too,’ Cameron said. ‘My dad’s really good at putting patches on things.’
Mr Wood laughed. ‘OK, then,’ he said.
‘You’ve persuaded me. But we’ll have to get Mr Burrows to agree. How about you and Jamie coming to see him with me, TJ?’
When they entered the head teacher’s office at lunch time Mrs Logan was there too, and Miss Berry. ‘Well?’ said Mr Burrows. ‘What now?’
