Llama United

by Scott Allen

  Tim could feel the adrenalin pumping around his body. His palms were sweaty and he nervously paced about the room as the balls were dropped into the swirly container from a velvet bag. Cairo, McCloud and Frank were also pacing about the lounge, and as it wasn’t the biggest of rooms, they started bumping into each other. It didn’t help anyone’s nerves.

  ‘What ball number are we?’ asked Cairo for the fifteenth time, gnawing at his nails.

  ‘Number four,’ replied Tim, for the fifteenth time.

  The ex-footballer was mixing the wooden balls up in the swirly container before he selected the first one.

  ‘Number three,’ he said, holding the wooden ball with white writing towards the camera.

  ‘Number three is Beverton, and they will play . . .’ came the voice of the main presenter from off screen.

  ‘Ohhh, number three,’ howled Cairo. ‘That was nearly us.’

  ‘Sssshh,’ said Tim.

  The actor was now swirling the balls. ‘Number five,’ he said.

  ‘Number five is East Ham United!’ said the main presenter.

  ‘Number five,’ wailed Cairo. ‘That was nearly us.’

  ‘Ssssh,’ said Tim again.

  ‘Number fifteen,’ said the ex-footballer.

  ‘Number fifteen is Munchester United.’

  ‘Ohh! Number fifteen. That was nearly us,’ howled Cairo again.

  ‘Just be quiet, will you!’ hissed Tim. ‘Hang on, that’s not even close to us.’

  ‘Number twenty-three,’ said the actor.

  ‘Number twenty-three is Brustol Town.’

  ‘Awww. I wanted us to play Munchester United,’ moaned Tim.

  The draw went on for another few minutes and still the number-four ball hadn’t been drawn. The actor and the ex-footballer were getting down to the final few balls in the container.

  Tim’s heart was pumping so fast he could feel it banging against his ribs. ‘Got to be careful here,’ he said. ‘There’s still a team left we want to avoid. They’ve got that massive striker, Elbows McGinty.’

  ‘Number thirty-seven,’ said the ex-footballer.

  ‘Number thirty-seven is Borwich City, and they play . . .’

  ‘Number four,’ said the actor.

  ‘That’s our friends Llama United,’ said the presenter with a chuckle. ‘Away from home for them. I wonder how they’ll get on with Elbows McGinty?’

  Tim put his head in hands. Of all the sixty-three teams they could have drawn, Borwich City was the one they really didn’t want. They weren’t big enough to give Llama United loads of money, it was a long drive to their ground and they had one of the deadliest strikers in the game – Elbows McGinty. Lethal in front of goal and lethal against the other players. He had already been sent off seven times this season. It should have been about twenty, but most of the referees in the league were scared of him. McGinty made sharks look cuddly.

  The Cup was going to become very real for Llama United in early January.

  26

  ELBOWS IN BORWICH

  By the time the third round of the Cup rolled into view, the Gravy farm had been covered in a few feet of snow several times. Despite the bad weather, McCloud carried on his training. He was out doing free-kick training on Christmas morning, corners on Boxing Day evening, and diving headers on New Year’s Day. He hardly took a break and didn’t seem to spend any time with family or friends. McCloud said his family all lived in Australia and he didn’t have the time to visit. This was a lie; they actually lived in New Zealand. McCloud was terrible at geography.

  Borwich City’s ground was the biggest Tim had been to so far. It held about twenty-eight thousand people, and every seat was either yellow or green. But he wasn’t admiring the ground this time – he was on the lookout for Elbows McGinty, the Welsh international who would be returning from a five-game ban for headbutting.

  His first name wasn’t really Elbows; it was Trevor. But everyone called him Elbows because he jumped for every high ball with a leading elbow, which would usually catch the poor opposing player going for the ball in the face. Elbows claimed he couldn’t help it and even agreed to go for some tests to try and solve the problem. They didn’t help. During an international friendly in Peru, the Peruvian goalkeeper was trying to catch a high corner when he had his eyeball poked out by a flailing McGinty elbow. That goalkeeper is now called Patch Sanchez.

  When Tim first clapped eyes on Elbows McGinty he was standing in the tunnel just outside the changing rooms. He was scratching the top of his nose. Not the kind of scratch most people do when they scratch their nose (you know, a quick one); he was really scratching it. Tim thought he’d scratch his nose right off he was doing it so hard.

  McGinty was a giant of a man, bigger than anyone Tim had ever seen before. He had legs that looked like huge tree trunks that had been pumped full of lead, and a chin that could smash a rock into little tiny pieces. On top of his head was an over-elaborate footballer’s haircut. Shaved one side, long on the other, with a ponytail that was pulled into a Mohawk.

  Tim was feeling brave, so went over to McGinty and stuck out his hand for a milkshake . . . sorry, I mean handshake. Even I’m nervous.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Tim, his voice trembling. ‘Have a great game today . . . but hopefully not that great.’

  McGinty looked down at Tim from his great height, and then slowly looked at Tim’s outstretched hand. Then he slapped it away with one of his huge mitts. WHACK. Ouch! That really hurt. What a horrible man, thought Tim.

  Elbows yawned and then carried on scratching his nose, while staring blankly into the distance. Tim stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, his hand throbbing from the wallop it had just received. Then he shuffled away and out of the tunnel. He hated Elbows McGinty even more now.

  Cairo was standing by the dugout when he saw Tim trying to rub the pain out of his hand.

  ‘You OK, gaffer?’ he asked. Cairo had taken to calling Tim ‘gaffer’ for some reason.

  ‘That Elbows McGinty,’ Tim said through gritted teeth. ‘He’s just whacked my hand! I was only trying to be nice.’

  ‘That’s professional footballers for you,’ said Cairo knowledgeably. ‘He must have had his game face on.’

  ‘Do you even know what a game face, is Cairo?’ asked Tim.

  Cairo shrugged. ‘I’ve absolutely no idea.’

  Llama United felt the full power of Elbows McGinty in the first five minutes of the match. He launched himself at Bill as a Borwich corner was floated into the area, catching him square on his long hairy chin. Bill staggered back and sank to his knees with a loud yelp; the llama had never been smashed in the face like that before. Ludo immediately stepped between McGinty and poor old Bill and puffed out his chest. As McGinty laughed in the big black llama’s face, a few other llamas and Borwich players joined in the pushing and shoving before the referee jumped into the melee, blowing his whistle over and over again.

  The Borwich players, who were very experienced in this kind of fracas, backed away and slunk back to their positions before the ref could work out who had been doing the pushing and shoving. The llamas didn’t really understand what was going on. It wasn’t something that McCloud had practised with them. So they carried on trying to bump the Borwich players, and by mistake the ref. The referee wasn’t best pleased with this and showed yellow cards to Ludo, Cruncher and Brian. Then he also gave a yellow to Cairo, who had sprinted on to the pitch with his physio bag to help Bill, because the ref hadn’t given him permission to come on.

  When the game got started again, Llama United were really spooked by the trouble and didn’t seem to be concentrating on the game. Borwich were having a field day and had loads of shots on goal. Luckily for Llama United, Ludo was at the top of his game.

  However, with three minutes to go in the first half, Borwich City had the ball in the back of the net and it was Elbows McGinty – who else? McGinty collected the ball about twenty yards out and charged straight at Bill who, unusually, steppe
d aside straight away; he didn’t want to get hit again. Elbows then dribbled round Brian . . . twice, which is quite a rare skill for such a big lumbering striker to perform. Once inside the area he unleashed an unstoppable drive into the top right-hand corner of the net. Ludo didn’t stand a chance . . . it was, after all, unstoppable. I don’t use that word lightly.

  The final cherry on the top for McGinty was when the ball went on to hit Motorway square on the side of the body, causing her to let out a loud and painful bleat.

  Borwich City 1 – 0 Llama United.

  Tim threw the water bottle he was holding to the ground in frustration. Cairo was desperate to charge on and check on Motorway, but Tim held him back. He didn’t want his friend to get another yellow. Cairo sat and fumed. He didn’t like having to wait for the ref’s instructions to come on and give medical attention to his team.

  McGinty, ever the one to revel in his goal celebrations, ran around the llamas as though he was riding an imaginary horse, then made a boo-hoo gesture to Bill, who looked totally confused. Elbows then completed the routine with a frankly disgusting ‘milking the cow’ mime. He clearly had no idea what kind of animal he was playing against.

  When the llamas got back to the changing room it wasn’t a happy place. Especially as nobody had cleaned away the llama poo from before the game. Tim wondered if it would have been better if they’d stayed on the pitch.

  McCloud was pacing aggressively up and down as they all filed in, muttering under his breath.

  ‘Sit down,’ he barked. Then he realized that none of the llamas could sit down on chairs; instead they just stood there looking at him blankly.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he continued to bark. ‘That was a disgrace. That’s the worst I’ve ever seen you play. You just gave up and let that thug Elbows McGinty take control. He’s laughing at you out there. Don’t you want to wipe that smile off his face in the second half?’

  The llamas stared back at McCloud. Tim could see Ludo’s long neck slump forward slightly, like it had the first day he’d met him. He clearly wasn’t happy.

  ‘Second half, get out and give them a taste of their own medicine – get tough,’ shouted McCloud, then he went over to Bill and went right up to his furry face. ‘And you, you cannae let him do that. You are a huge llama; you shouldn’t be taking that from him – he thinks you are weak! Get a grip. If we don’t score we are out!’ Then he stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Well, he tried to slam the door, but it was a safety door so it had one of those soft-close mechanisms.

  Bill looked sad. He had always been considered one of the toughest of the four defenders, but that smash in the face had rocked him to his very core. His chin was still fizzing in pain; what it needed was a nice packet of frozen peas. But being a llama he couldn’t ask for the peas and, perhaps more importantly, didn’t actually know what peas were. So he just continued to look sad.

  Tim didn’t like the shouty approach of McCloud or seeing the llamas upset. He preferred soft words of encouragement. When he got to Bill on his water round, the poor llama was looking sadder than ever. ‘C’mon Bill, you can do it,’ Tim whispered softly in the llama’s ear. ‘I know you’re a great player. Show McGinty no fear; get him with a few tackles early doors. Give him a scare; show him how tough you really are.’

  Tim wasn’t sure if this had worked, but Bill had raised his neck and was holding his head high again. Out of the corner of his eye, Ludo gave him one of his little nods. On the other side of the changing room Bob looked in the mirror at his brilliant hair . . . again! He hadn’t listened to any of the team talk.

  Bill certainly did get a few tackles in ‘early doors’ as requested, sending Borwich players flying left, right and centre. One was so hard the right winger crashed into the advertising hoardings on the side of the pitch and lay on the turf for a good few minutes, softly calling ‘Mummy, Mummy!’

  However, after his early success Bill did get a little carried away. Sixty minutes in he mistimed a tackle just inside the area and Borwich were awarded a penalty. It was also a yellow card for Bill. Even worse was that McGinty was Borwich’s penalty taker, and he hadn’t missed a penalty in five years. Tim felt guilty that he’d given Bill the wrong instructions. McCloud started wailing at the top of his voice.

  As McGinty carefully placed the ball on the penalty spot, Ludo wandered off his line to go and look at him. Nothing really unusual there; lots of goalkeepers do this to penalty takers to psych them out.

  OK, this was slightly unusual, as the goalkeeper in question was a llama.

  ‘Get away from me you dirty bag of fur,’ snarled McGinty as he went eye to eye with Ludo.

  Ludo nodded at McGinty and suddenly fired a tiny squirt of spit from the corner of his mouth. It was amazingly accurate and went straight into McGinty’s left eye. Then Ludo casually returned to his position in goal.

  ‘What was that?’ screamed Elbows McGinty, wiping his eye. ‘Did you see that ref? That flaming cow donkey thing spat in me eye!’

  ‘Just take the penalty, McGinty,’ shouted the ref. ‘I haven’t got time for any of your tricks today. I just want this game over as quickly as possible. I’m worried about all the llama poo on the pitch.’

  ‘But he spat in my eye,’ moaned McGinty, rubbing his eye with the grubby corner of his shirt. ‘You’ve got to send him off.’

  ‘I didn’t see it, McGinty, and if you don’t get on and take the penalty I’ll have to book you for time-wasting.’

  McGinty muttered under his breath and got ready to take the penalty. He’d rubbed most of the horrible llama spit out of his eye, but his vision wasn’t as clear as it normally was. He marked out his trademark long penalty run-up, ready to blast the ball into the top corner as he usually did. It was such a formality some of the Borwich fans didn’t even bother to watch.

  But as he commenced his run-up, his eye started itching horrendously and it totally put him off. He still blasted the ball, but this time it went high, wide and handsome into the fans behind the goal, smashing someone’s mobile phone out of their hand. They really should have been watching the pitch.

  The crowd went totally silent. Apart from the small cluster of purple-striped Llama United fans at the other end of the ground. Their numbers had swelled to over two hundred now, so obviously I can’t name them all this time. Their songs hadn’t got any better though.

  ‘U-NI-TED, U-NI-TED, U-NI-TED,’ was still all they could muster.

  In the dugout Tim, Cairo and McCloud briefly celebrated the miss, but then quickly charged to the side of the pitch to shout instructions; they still had to get back into this match.

  With the penalty miss and McGinty still struggling with his sore eye, Borwich City seemed to lose their attacking focus and appeared to be happy sitting back and settling for a 1 – 0 win. McGinty spent all his time rubbing at his eye with his shirt and fingers – which if anything was making things worse. He poured water into the now bloodshot eye and even had the physio on twice to check it, but he couldn’t find anything wrong. McGinty was so distracted that he hardly touched the ball for the rest of the match.

  Llama United, however, finally found their feet. With twenty minutes to go Cruncher brought the score level with a superb piledriver from twenty-five yards out. Not a keeper in the world could have stopped it. Tom and Cairo leaped from the dugout and knee-slid across the technical area turf in wild celebration. In the stands Frank, Beetroot, Monica and Molly leaped up and down with the rest of the llama fans. Fiona remained seated – she was listening to Five Jackets’ latest song – ‘My Zip is Stuck’ – on her phone.

  Then, with just two minutes left, a Borwich defender fouled Lightning just outside the area. It’s quite easy to foul a llama to be honest; they have four legs to tackle, so chances are you are going to smack into one of them. This free kick was the perfect range for Dasher, who McCloud had been paying special attention during dead-ball training on Christmas morning. Borwich had everyone back in the area and had built a six
-man wall, which included the huge McGinty, still rubbing his eye.

  Dasher took a three-step run-up and curled the ball up and over the wall, aiming for the top corner of the net. But the keeper had spotted the plan and was moving across to the corner of the goal to make the save. Tim put his hands over his eyes, leaving a tiny crack to watch through. Just as the ball cleared the wall it took a deflection off McGinty’s elbow, which was up at a right angle as he rubbed his eye. The ball ricocheted in the opposite direction to where the keeper was going and looped into the other side of the net.

  Borwich City 1 – 2 Llama United. What drama!

  The referee blew the final whistle not long after that. Llama United were through to the fourth round of the Cup! Tim, Cairo and McCloud couldn’t quite believe it as they hugged and hopped up and down on the side of the pitch. The llamas just stood there wondering what all the fuss was about.

  27

  THE BANKING CRISIS

  The phone at the Gravys’ farmhouse was ringing constantly after the Borwich clash. This was all down to Beetroot and Molly’s lovely Llama United scarves. Everyone wanted one. They had only finished six in total because they weren’t brilliant at knitting, and they were struggling to keep up with the number of requests. The new Llama United fans also wanted T-shirts, flags, kits and hats, and there was one odd request for a huge papier mâché Goal Machine head, who was easily the ugliest of all the llamas.

  The kitchen table was a sea of purple wool, knitting needles and bits of material. Occasionally Monica would offer to help, but she was so snowed under looking after all the social media accounts and the website she just didn’t have time. Tim didn’t know the first thing about knitting, and Fiona was only keen on trying to balance large balls of wool on her head.

  Frank was no help either. When he wasn’t doing maths in his little black notepad, he was fiddling around in the first field. He still hadn’t finished Fiona’s princess castle, which was making her angry, and his beekeeping attempts had gone horribly wrong. He’d risked some of the money they’d earned from the Borwich City match on six beehives and thousands and thousands of bees. However, he forgot to buy any queen bees, so nothing really happened. A few thousand went on holiday and I heard a rumour that a handful opened a cereal cafe somewhere, but that’s about it. To make matters worse, Frank’s beekeeper costume was very cheap and offered virtually no protection. Every evening he returned to the farmhouse with an interesting array of stings and bumps over his body. When a bee stung him inside his right nostril, he decided it was time to try something less dangerous.