One Shot at Glory

by PJ Davitt

  Chapter Seven

  C’mon Dad. Pull me to pieces, like you have done, well, forever after my games.

  Please say something. Anything but the silent treatment all the way home.

  Not a word. Only the hum of the engine and the whish of the wiper blades as the rain falls outside. We both know what just happened is different. I had never reacted like that before, not on a football field. Come to think of it, I’d never reacted like that ever in my life.

  Yeah, I could be annoying. Loved to get under the skin of defenders, but it was as if I’d been possessed.

  Even Mum opts to toe the party line sitting quietly in the back seat. Disappointment hangs in the air. One moment of madness from their son had sent a tremor through the Shaw family.

  I can’t wait to get out of the passenger seat and bolt to my bedroom.

  No inquest tonight.

  I can hear muffled voices from downstairs as Mum and Dad try making sense of it behind a closed door. Just like me.

  Anyone who ever tries telling you again things never seen quite so bad in the morning should have been sat in our kitchen hours after the night from hell.

  ‘Grow up David, for pity’s sake.’

  Dad had found his voice. And he is fuming. I’ve barely slept processing every image; pouring over every mouthful of abuse and slyness from Sheldon, my violent response and the recriminations.

  Pleas for leniency and mitigation are cutting no ice.

  My old man had a long fuse but I haven’t seen him this angry since the time I pulled a kitchen cupboard off the wall when I was about seven or eight, climbing up onto a shelf reaching for cookies. I don’t know whether it was his son’s personal safety or the fact I’d wrecked his DIY handiwork but I never did it again.

  ‘Why do you think he tried winding you up? Well? I’m waiting David.’

  I reach for the cereal. Not that I’m hungry, just stalling for time.

  ‘I’ll tell you why, shall I?’ Off he goes again, barely pausing for breath.

  I guess he’d rather have this conversation with himself anyway.

  ‘David, when will the penny drop? This isn’t messing about with your friends, or running in and out of cones down The Lodge for a couple of hours after school.

  ‘You’re in the real world of professional football. It’s not a game, it’s a business, and a ruthless one at that. What the hell did you expect? For Sheldon to play nicely and let you do what you wanted out there last night?

  Now he was being silly; poking me for a reaction. But I had just learned a brutal lesson over these past 12 hours or so. This time I decide not to bite.

  ‘Son, you have the talent to be a professional footballer. We both know that and so do Wolston. It takes much more than that. If you thought getting a scholarship last year was the be-all and end-all you’re deluding yourself. You haven’t made it.’

  The tone was softer but the words cut just as deeply.

  ‘What do you think Mark Peacock and Charlie McGovern made of that performance last night? Or Rob Duncan and the rest of the academy coaches? You’ve let a lot of people down. You let me and your mother down. But the real issue here is you’re cheating yourself. It’s your life. Take some responsibility for it.’

  I stare down at the saturated flakes in my breakfast bowl. I can feel tears start to well again; like I haven’t cried enough already. Dad’s words hurt a thousand times more than the dull pain around my Achilles from Sheldon’s wild lunge.

  It was the same well-worn speech from McGovern and Duncan. How I always seem to tread a fine line between a football pitch or working in an office or on a building site. How talent alone was no guarantee.

  In the early hours as I lay awake last night I tried to take stock. Easier said than done when all you feel is numbness.

  But even at my lowest ebb, wandering dazed off that pitch, sobbing in the changing room afterwards, hearing the hum of the car engine, I never questioned I would still make it at Wolston. I’d banished those dark thoughts since becoming a regular in the side after Christmas.

  Now Dad is laying it on the line. This is still in the balance.

  ‘Ten-man Rovers hang on in feisty derby draw.’

  I nearly choke on my first mouthful of cereal as I clock the headline on the back of the local paper.

  Dad had strategically placed it next to me on the kitchen table.

  Probably waiting for the paperboy to come up the garden path after his own sleepless night.

  I flick inside a couple of pages as Dad gets up from the table, the back door slams shut as he heads down the garden path to his shed. Anywhere but share the same oxygen as me.

  I look again at the paper and staring back is a picture of Rogers leading me away from the fracas. I have this mad, demented look while Sheldon, the poor innocent victim, is helped to his feet.

  I force myself to read the article as the sickness and shame wash over me again.

  ‘Young goalscorer Dave Shaw was red-carded for an attack on Didsbury’s experienced defender Ben Sheldon as the explosive derby boiled to a tense finale.

  ‘Shaw reacted angrily to Sheldon’s lunge from behind after earlier drawing Rovers level on his development team debut.

  ‘The volatile 17-year-old grappled Sheldon to the ground, sparking ugly scenes at Lowfield Road as players and club officials squared up to each other.’

  It’s horrific. Words like ‘volatile’ and ‘attack’ have no place on the sports pages. It sounds like I’d hidden down a dark alley with a baseball bat.

  Charlie McGovern wants to see me in his office later for a ‘chat’, only I know who’ll be doing the talking. This day was going to get a lot worse before it got better. If it got better. Ever.

  Dad offers to come with me. He might not want to be in the same room but he isn’t going to cut his son adrift. I turn him down. This is my mess. I don’t need anyone holding my hand. Not any more.

  The academy squad is training on the far pitches as I pull in to The Lodge car park.

  I’m so jealous. Right at this moment in my wretched life I want nothing more than to be back among the boys in familiar surroundings; warm, comfortable, safe.

  ‘So what have you got to say for yourself?’

  McGovern’s laptop is out of sight. But a copy of the local paper is folded on his desk.

  He had left me to stew after the game. Not that I was in a fit state to do much more than fight back the tears. Sitting the other side of his big desk now feels like being the accused returning for sentencing.

  ‘Sorry Charlie.’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry doesn’t really cut it, young man. That was pathetic. You left team mates in the lurch and that is something you never do on a football pitch.’

  ‘I know, I just lost the plot. The guy was in my ear all game and I snapped. The emotion got to me and for a split-second I lost control. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.’

  The lads had managed to grind out a draw in the remaining minutes but I knew my opening statement sounded like a miserable, pitiful excuse. Hollow words.

  ‘Too right it won’t,’ shouts McGovern. ‘At least not this season. It was a total lack of discipline. We can’t accept that sort of behaviour. If you pick up a booking or two along the way for a mistimed tackle that is part of the game. But do you honestly think you can get away with that?’

  ‘I dunno – I mean no,’ I mumble. I stare at the dark blue carpet in his office, desperate to avoid McGovern’s disapproving gaze.

  Dad’s earlier warning over my future starts to feel more like a prophecy, like I’d burnt my bridges at the club I love.

  ‘You’re not ready for the step up yet, David. That much is clear now. I’ve got no option but to leave you out of the remaining development fixtures this season. We’re awaiting the referee’s report from last night but it’s a formality you’ll get a three-game ban for violent conduct.’

  A ban? It hadn’t even dawned on me in the midst of my self-pity.

&nbs
p; I had never been suspended before.

  Hit me with a fine, make me apologise publically at Rovers’ next first team game, make me train in fancy dress for the next month, anything but stop me from playing.

  ‘How’s the heel?’ McGovern eases back into his chair after hitting me with a tirade. It’s the first sympathetic signal I’d had since setting foot inside the building.

  ‘Still a bit sore,’ I whine.

  Like he really cared.

  ‘The physios iced it straight away and I’ve got some strapping around it now. They’ve told me to keep the weight off it as much as possible. We haven’t got a game this Saturday so I should be fit the following weekend.’

  I might be fit but McGovern’s revelation had made that admission totally irrelevant. I wouldn’t be playing. My rush of blood had seen to that.

  ‘David, you know the best way, no, the only way to deal with intimidation?’

  Quiz questions now, McGovern? I’m really not in the mood.

  ‘By doing what you did and scoring a goal. Believe me, I had it all in my time, pinching, spitting, gouging, you name it there was nothing some opponents thought was off-limits. I remember a World Cup qualifier when this animal tried to bite my ear at a corner. I’ll never forget the face. The guy looked like he’d been fed on raw meat for a year.

  ‘Just take it as a sign you’ve rattled them. Sheldon wouldn’t have got so wound up otherwise. Trust me, he’s too long in the tooth for that caper, especially in a meaningless game in front of an empty stadium.’

  Meaningless? Not to me. It felt like the biggest game of my life.

  ‘We’ve all made mistakes and we know young players are not the finished article, that’s why we’ll only have a problem if you keep making the same ones.’

  McGovern rises to his feet.

  ‘Look, I can see how much it’s shaken you. You’ll be fined and with the ban to come consider this an end to the matter.

  ‘Listen, the gaffer was impressed. You took your goal well, linked the play and did everything we expected once you settled down. Just cut out the wrestling.’

  McGovern’s attempts to sugar the pill taste rancid. Maybe because I knew I have to survive the paint-stripper routine from Duncan.

  By the end of his interrogation I’m pleading for a lone assassin to burst through the door and end my misery.

  Don’t ask me to go through it all again. Please. Let’s just say in his view he had stuck his neck out to offer me a scholarship and this was how I re-paid him.

  Classic Duncan. It should have been about me, yet it was all about him. I walked into his office 5ft 10 and crawled back out 3ft 8 after the biggest rollicking I’d ever had from the Scot. And that is saying something.

  I wander back to my car dazed; like I’ve been released on parole for murder. My hand shakes as I struggle to put the key in the ignition.

  Any chance of a pardon or even redemption swiftly fades over those final few weeks of the season.

  No more goals to add to the 20 for the academy and one for the development side; a healthy total after stepping out of Olaf’s shadow before a sour end to the season.

  I’d reached the midway point of my scholarship and would have to prove myself all over again. One step forward, ten back.

  The summer drags. A permanent, dark cloud hovers over Dave Shaw as I count the days to pre-season training, just like the previous summer, when I couldn’t wait to get started.

  Back then it was about making a good impression, now it is repairing a shattered one.

  It feels like repeating a school year.

  Running out at Stoke’s Britannia Stadium on a cool September evening, in my eyes, is the real start to the new season.

  I tuck away a few early goals in the academy league but the FA Youth Cup is my personal target after sitting in the stands this time last season when we got knocked out against Southampton.

  Wolston last reached the final a decade ago when they were hammered 9-1 on aggregate against a great West Ham side. Dad and I occasionally watched those games back. The Hammers’ had these two midfielders who ran the show and were now full England internationals.

  It was the best competition in the country at academy level. Certainly the one with the most prestige. Stoke away is a tough draw. The Potters’ were a well-established Premier League club.

  Jimbo is our new academy captain; a natural choice for me. Mike Usher is the number one between the sticks, we have the two Welsh boys in defence, Joe Louisburgh in the middle of the park and me up front.

  Dooley is trying to build a new side around a solid spine of second year scholars and I’m determined to prove he can rely on Dave Shaw.

  Thinny is back in light training after his car crash. Phil Warwick had long since gone after Rovers opt not to offer him a professional deal. Just another 18-year-old they deem not up to scratch. Last I heard he was training with King’s Lynn, an ambitious non league club recently promoted to the Conference.

  I’m desperate to avoid the same career path. I have so much to prove and others looking up to me now. There is a new striker just as cocky as Dave Shaw, or the old Dave Shaw.

  Paul Morley had arrived over the summer. He’d already spent time at Charlton, QPR and Orient without really settling anywhere. The guy does not lack for confidence, which coming from me is saying something. He strolled in on his first day of pre-season as if he owned the joint.

  Jack Goddard emerged from the showers to find his tracksuit dangling on a window ledge in flames. Morley liked living dangerously. The Goddard of old would’ve had him hanging from the same balcony overlooking the training pitches before his singed clothing melted.

  But Goddard was no longer the main man at Wolston. Opponents were now physically his equal and he was struggling to hold down a place in his less favoured full-back position.

  Morley needed to back up his comedy antics on the pitch. I wasn’t impressed during the first pre-season games. The lad is powerful in the air but his technique isn’t great. Then again, who am I to question Duncan? He was spot on about Thinny and, dare I say it, Dave Shaw too.

  Goddard picks up a booking within five minutes of the kick-off after smashing the winger into the advertising boards.

  It’s late and crude, one of those where you leave a bit on your direct rival to let him know you mean business. Goddard takes his punishment but sends Stoke the signal we fancy this and we are not rolling over.

  Jim picks out my run between two markers. We’ve played so often together now it’s almost telepathy. I gather the ball in one motion and drive towards Stoke’s back-pedalling defence.

  I can see Morley in my peripheral vision. I want him to take a man away, provide a decoy run to open up some space, so I feint right and nearly collide with the idiot as he runs straight across me attracting two Stoke defenders to the ball who easily break up a promising attack.

  ‘What are you doing, fool?’ I shout as I thrust both hands skywards towards Dooley, standing at the front of his technical area. ‘Take your marker away.’

  Hardly words of encouragement from the senior partner, not that he needed any help in the confidence stakes.

  Morley gives me a nod I take as an admission of guilt. Given the same chance again I know he is likely to be a repeat offender. Morley is a guy who plays on instinct; it’s all off-the-cuff and taking chances when he has little or no time to think about what he is doing. Let him have too much time or room and the odds are stacked against him picking the right option.

  But what he lacks on the floor or between his ears, he compensates for in the air.

  Midway through the opening half, I veer left to collect Morley’s flick from Mike Usher’s booming goal kick before easing off the revs.

  I want to square up the nearest defender to get him off-balance.

  He tries to show me outside but I jink inside and curl a left footer from the edge of the penalty box beyond the Stoke keeper. I know it’s in the moment it leaves my foot. <
br />
  One chance, no, one half-chance, one goal. Top drawer stuff.

  I punch the air as I race towards the directors’ box trying to pick out Mum and Dad. It’s a goal that deserves more than polite applause from the Main Stand. Clearly most of the Potters’ supporters have decided there are better things to do on a Thursday night in Stoke.

  Morley is one of the first to congratulate me.

  ‘Well done, fool,’ I laugh.

  ‘Behave, you’ve been watching me in training again, Dave.’

  ‘Jog on. Not even in your wildest dreams could you score a goal like that.’

  He frustrated the life out of me but maybe there is a partnership that might work between us.

  Jimbo makes it 2-0 before half-time. Morley then commits the keeper with his pace early in the second half and gets brought down inside the box.

  Man, I was quick but this guy is pure lightening, or should that be frightening in full flow.

  The referee points to the penalty spot and books their keeper. If the full-back is not around on the cover it had to be a red. I pat down some mud around the spot. This is all part of my routine. Like a place kicker in rugby.

  One, two, three paces back. Get the breathing right. Turn, then visualise, low and hard inside the right-hand post. Nothing difficult, just open up the body and sidefoot it in with power. One deep breath, wait for the referee’s whistle. Focus.

  Bang. Goal.

  Never in doubt.

  0-3. Fourth Round here we come. The tie is over. We know it, Stoke know it. As long as we don’t do anything silly we can enjoy this final quarter.

  Mike Usher’s a virtual spectator as Jim and Joe spray the ball across midfield. Jimbo lets fly from 25 yards but the overworked Stoke keeper goes full length to tip it over.

  I make a near post run from the corner but it flies over me where Goddard launches himself at Joey’s ball to crash a header between the far post and a Stoke defender on the line. 0-4.

  A small band of home fans have seen enough. Goddard’s goal is the cue for a clatter of seats as they drift away into the night.

  Stoke’s players argue amongst themselves preparing to kick-off.

  Maybe a touch of complacency lads, when you saw the draw? A home tie against a Championship club. Probably already had one eye on Manchester United or Liverpool in the next round.

  Think again boys.

  For second year scholars like me in the Stoke side they were rapidly coming to the end of their last-ever FA Youth Cup adventure.

  Just enough time left for me to grab another matchball.

  Morley skips past the one-paced full-back and hammers a cross on the run. It arrives at waist-height as I rock backwards on the penalty spot ready for a bicycle kick. I catch the ball flush but watch it cannon against the bar from 12 yards and fly over.

  Did I have time to bring it down? You know the answer, David.

  I pull myself to my feet as the smattering of applause dies down.

  Thanks Mr and Mrs Shaw.

  Dooley’s booming voice is barking out instructions. The fourth official holds up number nine. I shake hands with the referee as I stroll off. The hat-trick can wait for another day.

  Am I happy to get hooked? No, not completely, but its job done and we are in the next round. That’s all that matters. I know what you’re thinking after my Arsenal antics a couple of seasons ago, but, trust me, I fully understand the bigger picture now. I’ve grown up a lot since then.

  Dooley hugs me and pushes me towards the tunnel. The game ticks into stoppage time. No point sweating in the cold, chilly air for another minute or two.

  The warmth from the away dressing room feels so good as I slip off my boots, stretch out on the physio’s bench and close my eyes.

  Just give me a quiet minute before the chaos and the pumping music. Where do you fancy in the next round, Shawsy? Old Trafford? Anfield?

  ‘Well done, young man.’

  I recognise that voice, even with my eyes shut. Mark Peacock.

  ‘Gaffer.’

  I sit practically bolt upright ready to stand to attention until Peacock motions me to remain lying on the bench.

  ‘No, no David. Don’t get up on my account. I think you’ve earned a little rest after that shift tonight.’

  He raises his hands before pushing them back into a full length leather coat, collar tucked up against the elements.

  Wolston’s first team manager stands in the doorway, blocking out most of the light from the corridor. He takes another pace forward and the dressing room door swings shut. Just me and him.

  ‘What a fantastic first goal and on your left peg too. I was right behind it. It was in the moment you hit it.’

  I’d been working hard on my weaker foot. Two-footed I’m not but it was getting there.

  Then I remember my final miss, the one where I hit the bar showboating.

  ‘Should’ve had a hat-trick, gaffer. The bicycle kick didn’t come down quickly enough.’

  Get that one in before he mentions it. He isn’t speaking to the awestruck teenager from our first meeting at The Lodge now, when I didn’t know whether to shake his hand or bow.

  For the past year or so I’d seen Wolston’s manager pretty much every week, diving in and out of offices at the training ground, sitting with his coaching staff in the canteen or passing him in the car park; even watching him out of the window on Friday mornings sat in Matt Kearns’ classroom as he went through shape work with the first team squad.

  But this is our first face-to-face since day one. A lot of water had flown under the bridge since.

  Peacock shuffles a couple of paces towards me and sits down on one of the benches that skirt three walls of the dressing room.

  He starts unbuttoning his overcoat. He must have travelled up to Stoke straight after training that morning.

  ‘My memory isn’t what it used to be but that’s three goals in the last two matches I’ve watched you, David, this match and Didsbury last season.’

  Let’s gloss over that night, gaffer. Or at least the bit where I grabbed Sheldon around the throat, got sent off, banned, shamed my family, had both barrels from McGovern and Duncan…stop me anytime you want here.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. I made a total idiot of myself. Let a lot of people down. It was stupid of me but it’ll never happen again, gaffer.’

  I’m right back at the kitchen table, apologising to my old man for something that happened five months ago.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he laughs. ‘We don’t need to drag all that up. I think Charlie put the incident swiftly to bed. Anyway, I was no angel in my time, although in those days you could get away with it. Now with so many cameras and assessors in the stands you’ve got no chance.’

  Peacock may have been able to see the funny side but time had not been a great healer. I’m still dealing with the consequences, making up for lost ground.

  ‘As long as you’ve learned from it. Better for it to happen in a development game than a first team match.’

  Chance would be a fine thing. I hadn’t had a look-in at development level so far this season. I was the proverbial black sheep of the academy.

  Peacock can afford to dole out some compassion. Rovers had started the new Championship season well with Radek Raszi carrying on his form from the second half of last year.

  That lost soul slumped at the back of the dugout against City on Boxing Day had been transformed into a penalty box predator. His 15 goals over the run-in fired Rovers to the brink of an unlikely shot at the play-offs before they ran out of steam.

  I’ll let you into a little secret here. Radek’s revival is one of the big things driving me on; that quest to prove people wrong and me right.

  ‘I’m getting excellent reports from Charlie and the academy staff,’ says Peacock. ‘Based on what I’ve seen with my own eyes tonight they are right. When do you turn 18, David?’

  ‘November 17th’

  ‘November, not that long now then. W
hat I wouldn’t give to be 18 again. Big, big milestone. Are you looking forward to it? Any special plans? Ones that don’t involve alcohol I hope.’

  ‘Not given it too much thought gaffer,’ I reply, still perched in a my awkward pose on the leather bench. ‘Just concentrating on my football.’

  The rest of the boys will be piling back into the changing room any minute. It must be full-time now. I’m praying for the door to burst open so we can end this forced chit chat. Let Peacock congratulate Dooley and the whole squad together for getting past a Premier League outfit.

  ‘Right answer,’ he laughs again. Even louder this time.

  I’m seriously not trying to be funny but either this guy is laying it on a bit thick or he’s warming to the old Dave Shaw charms.

  ‘Too many distractions for lads your age. Just focus on football and everything else will fall into place. That is the best piece of advice my Dad ever gave me.

  ‘No, on a serious note, David, there is a reason I sneaked down before I shoot back to Wolston. I wanted a quiet word with you.’

  Quiet word? Right, that’s it. Time to make a decision, as I swing my legs over the bench to face him.

  What have I done wrong now? Ever since the Dids..I mean that ‘incident’ I’d kept my head down and out of trouble, which meant staying out of Duncan’s way as much as possible.

  I’d played in all the academy’s games, scored a few goals, and had just done the business to get us into the next round of the FA Youth Cup.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, young man,’ Peacock stands up and edges towards me.

  Yeah, easy for you to say. This feels like being on a rollercoaster creeping to the top of the first chilling descent.

  ‘David, I want you to come and train with the first team squad on a full-time basis once this FA Youth Cup run is over. I think you’re ready.

  ‘It’s pretty clear you’ve carried on where you left off last season so it’d be good for your development to train with the senior pros. It’s time you moved onto the next level. Is that okay with you?’

  This descent is not as frightening as I thought. In fact it’s exhilarating. A mega rush. I want to do it again. And again. I’m back in the fold. Big time.

  ‘Okay? Is that okay?’ I hear myself repeating out loud. ‘Gaffer, you’ve just given me the best 18th birthday present I could wish for.’