The Mighty Dynamo

by Kieran Crowley

  There were a few cheers. They finally had some clear instructions that involved playing football, not just resorting to violence and the possible sacrifice of body parts. Barbara gave Stevie a high-five as the new manager took his place on the sidelines.

  Their form began to improve almost immediately. Noah was instrumental in everything and took control of the midfield, playing little one-twos and spinning around to ease the ball forward, but their first goal came from an unexpected source.

  Noah played a one-two with Sunday and clipped the ball forward into the space between the left-back and the centre-back. Limbsy Donnelly ran on to it, confusing the defenders with his leggy physics-defying movements. He tried to knock the ball forward towards Maggie who was roaring for a pass, but managed to play it off his own leg instead. It looped in the air and over the keeper before hitting the crossbar and bouncing off the back of the keeper’s head and into the net. The team was too stunned to celebrate. Even Limbsy himself was gobsmacked.

  Maggie got a second goal a couple of minutes later, a beautifully controlled volley from just inside the area.

  The opposition’s centre-half clapped his hands in appreciation. ‘Great finish, kid.’

  ‘I’ve scored better,’ she said with a shrug.

  They still had time to hit the bar with a ferocious Cormac McHugh shot before Stevie’s iPhone beeped to signal the end of the match with the score still at 2–2. Half the older team collapsed to the ground afterwards, more exhausted than they had been since U2 were in their prime. The captain shook Noah’s hand.

  ‘Unusual tactic, firing your manager during the match, but you did the right thing. Dig’s one of those lads who gets worse the more you get to know him. You were much better in the ten minutes without him than you were in the forty minutes with him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Noah said as the team trooped off.

  He felt a bit guilty about getting rid of Grimsby the way he had, but he knew if he was going to succeed it had to be done. He’d given the ex-gaffer enough chances to prove himself.

  Noah had wondered what kind of squad he had and now he had the answer – not a bad one at all. There were plenty of good players and those that weren’t good tried really hard. They showed promise.

  Everyone was in high spirits and they crowded around Stevie patting him on the back and showering him with praise. Noah felt a strange pang in his chest. It took him quite some time to recognize that the feeling was jealousy. He was considering whether or not he should talk to Stevie about what had happened when the empty Grudz packet blew right into his face.

  The only person he’d ever seen eating Grudz sweets was Mr Hegarty. But why would he have been hanging around The Hatch? Apart from kicking Noah off the team, Hegarty had never shown the slightest interest in football and he was surely unlikely to start now. It must just be a coincidence.

  It wasn’t.

  Name: Tony Donnelly

  Nickname: Limbsy. I’m kinda tall and gangly. I think that’s why I got the nickname. Don’t mind it, though. It’s all for a laugh, isn’t it?

  Age: 12

  Position: Forward, but I’m happy to play anywhere really. I just love playing football. The best day I ever had was during the last summer holidays when me and a bunch of lads from the estate played a game on the green for about four hours. In the end, there were dads coming home from work and joining in and we ended up with about twenty-five players on each side. We couldn’t keep track of the scores and there were loads of arguments. It was epic.

  Likes: Sherlock; I love all those mystery stories. I’m good with bikes too. My dad has an old motorbike he’s always fixing up in our back garden – Mam goes mad because of all the bits and pieces lying around – and I help him with it.

  Dislikes: Being stuck on a bus with a smelly guy in the next seat. It happened to me once and I kept gagging for hours afterwards. Other than that I kinda like most things, but nothing more than football. Football rocks.

  Player you’re most like: People say I’m like Peter Crouch cos I’m tall and skinny. I can see what they mean :) but I think I’m more like Shane Long.

  Favourite player: Wayne Rooney. What a player.

  Favourite goal: His bicycle kick against Man City a few years ago. I have never seen a better goal in my whole life.

  Messi or Ronaldo: Messi

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘Football is a simple game: twenty-two men chase a ball for ninety minutes and in the end, the Germans win’

  Gary Lineker

  The weeks began to fly by and soon May was coming to an end and the summer holidays were almost upon them, which meant that everyone was in good form. There was even a rumour that Kevin McCooley had been seen smiling, but no one could confirm it. With Stevie in charge of training, the team had improved immeasurably in a short space of time. And what was even better was that they had improved while enjoying the sessions. Noah had been playing organized football for almost seven years and he had never enjoyed training as much as he had done in those few weeks. He didn’t tell Stevie that, though.

  ‘How do you do it, Stevie, man?’ Hawk Willis asked at the end of one session. ‘I’ve never had so much fun in my life.’

  ‘Oh, it’s just basic science and a touch of psychology,’ Stevie said. ‘In the past, teams trained collectively, the way Mr Grimsby trained us. That means if you had fast-twitch or slow-twitch muscles, if you were skinny or stocky, you were trained the same way. There are certain general training methods that work for all of us, but to maximise a player’s potential you have to give them individual training programmes too. For example, Hawk, you have a lot of fast-twitch muscles like most sprinters so getting you to pound out the miles is counter-productive. You need to protect your hamstrings yet enhance your speed—’

  ‘Thanks for that, Stevie. Now I’ve never been so bored in my life. Next time I show any interest in anything you do, shoot me immediately,’ Hawk said.

  ‘I think it’s impressive, Stevie. You’re like a walking, talking Google,’ Frank said.

  ‘He sure is,’ Barbara agreed.

  Most of the training was done with a ball at their feet just as Stevie had told Grimsby it should be. Stevie would walk up and down observing everything, always making notes on his clipboard, as they played mini-games and did their passing drills.

  Occasionally he’d film sections of the training on his phone and review them later. He filmed them dribbling through cones. There were always wildly varying results: Noah and Maggie were usually perfect, some of the players were average, but no matter what day of the week it was or what the conditions were Kevin McCooley was terrible. Unremittingly awful. The ball and McCooley’s right foot repelled each other as much as a couple of magnets with the same polarity and he never managed to wriggle through without knocking over at least one of the cones.

  ‘Keep going, Kevin, you’re doing great work,’ Stevie would shout every time.

  And every time that part of the session would end with McCooley angrily booting one of the orange cones as far as he could. Once he managed to get one to land on the roof of the hut and he took a bow when everyone applauded. As far as Noah could tell, the squad had begun to accept him as a teammate, especially Sunday and Darren. That wasn’t to say that the squad weren’t still wary of him. They always knew that he could go berserk at any time. It was a little like dealing with a dog you can’t quite trust, but as long as they didn’t aggravate him he left them alone.

  Some players blossomed under Stevie’s guidance, especially the quieter ones, as he never roared at them or criticized them in any way. He only encouraged them and everything he said was positive, which meant their confidence improved. When the ball came to them, instead of kicking it as far away as possible, like it was a grenade about to explode, they tried their best to control it and look for the best pass. They learned that it was OK to take risks and it wasn’t the end of the world if their pass went astray or the ball bounced away as they tried to trap it. If they made a mistak
e, they learned from it and if the risk worked out they felt good about themselves. He gave them the freedom to express themselves on the pitch and they learned when to try something wildly unpredictable and when to play it safe. They didn’t just play football – they loved it.

  Stevie was a little different when it came to Maggie and Piotr, the two most over-confident players in the team, possibly in the northern hemisphere. He had to remind them that, as good as they were, they still needed to keep their focus if they weren’t going to become sloppy. To Noah’s surprise, Maggie actually listened to what Stevie said and, despite all her bluster, she trained exceptionally hard, always giving it everything in her desire to improve. Everyone seemed to take Stevie’s words on board and the only person he didn’t offer any advice to was Noah.

  To stop little groups or cliques forming, Stevie mixed the teams up constantly so that everybody got used to each other and never became too comfortable.

  Of course, as the players improved and their confidence grew, Maggie started to show off.

  ‘Oh, I hope that wasn’t too embarrassing for you,’ she’d say as she nutmegged Darren, or, ‘Thank goodness you’re smart, Sunday, cos you’re not much of a footballer,’ as she rainbow-flicked the ball over his head.

  The rest of the team was really progressing well too, Noah noted. Piotr was an excellent keeper, sometimes a little too eager to race out of his goal – and to run his mouth off – but he gave the defence confidence and organized them well.

  Frank and Barbara were great in the air, solid on the ground and never switched off their focus for one second. Noah had heard that some twins have a telepathic link. It seemed that Frank and Barbara certainly did when it came to football.

  The full-backs were Darren Nolan on the right and Michael Griffin on the left. Darren was fast and a good worker and listened to the commands of his centre-backs, but Michael Griffin was a revelation. He wasn’t particularly speedy and he didn’t have outrageous skill, but he read the game better than anyone Noah had ever played with or against. He seemed to know what was going to happen three or four passes before it did. He hardly had to make a tackle because he was always in the right place at the right time. Noah couldn’t believe he’d never even had a trial for the school team.

  Noah himself was in the centre of midfield with Kevin McCooley. Poor Kevin wasn’t a great communicator and he was slow over a few metres, but he could run all day long and once he wound himself up and got going there was no stopping him. His skill was winning the ball and making a simple pass. And he ran just as hard at the end of a session as he had at the beginning. On the left, Sunday was a winger with a nice range of skills, but he wasn’t very fast. The other wing had a different problem – Hawk Willis was lightning quick, but brainless. One minute he’d look like the greatest player that had ever lived, the next as if he’d never seen a football before.

  Noah thought his own game was improving too, especially with Maggie playing between the midfield and Limbsy up front. She always made intelligent runs, which made Noah’s eye of the needle passes look even better and if she was a little less selfish she’d have been a brilliant team player, but then she wouldn’t have been as spectacularly good.

  Adam O’Brien and Cormac McHugh gave it their all. They turned up early for every training session, listened to every instruction and piece of advice and spent a lot of their free time practising new skills. Nobody worked harder than them, but despite all their effort they looked increasingly like squad players rather than starters. If they minded, they didn’t show it. They made a pact with each other not to sit sulking on the sidelines. Instead, they were going to do some extra training and try to prove they were good enough to make the first eleven. They knew that their new manager was fair and that they’d get plenty of game time even if they didn’t always start. And when they got their chance they were going to do their best to take it.

  Stevie got all the players to practise shooting early before the goalkeeper or defenders were set in their best positions and told them that they should shoot low whenever possible as it meant the keeper had further to travel to save the shot. He got them to play in every position on the field at various times so that they’d understand what their teammates were doing and learn something about how to outfox their opponents. Every day they learned something new.

  After every training session they’d go to Dee’s Diner. It was here that they really got to know each other. They helped each other out and mocked each other mercilessly. It was where they became a team.

  In the last days before the holidays, a couple of weeks before the tournament was due to begin, they played two practice matches. It hadn’t been easy to find opponents to play them. A few teams considered them a joke for playing for a girls’ school, others were terrified of playing against a McCooley, and Noah suspected that some of the teams had been threatened or put off by Hegarty and Noah’s old team captain Jim Reynolds. Stevie was like a terrier, though, and didn’t give up until he’d managed to sort out some games.

  They played the first one on one of the town pitches, which made a nice change from The Hatch. Their official jerseys still weren’t ready so they wore white T-shirts and a variety of different coloured shorts.

  Within minutes the team realized how good Stevie’s training had been. They were several classes above the opposition who ran around like headless chickens while Noah’s team passed the ball crisply and efficiently around them. Maggie was breathtakingly good and scored a magnificent bicycle kick in the fifth minute. They scored three more goals before half-time and by the final whistle they were 7–0 up.

  The second match two days later was even better. Noah scored four goals from midfield, Maggie got a hat-trick, Limbsy got two and Darren Nolan and Hawk Willis both scored a goal each. Hawk’s was an over-hit cross that deceived the keeper, but he claimed that he meant it and nobody could persuade him otherwise.

  Nobody noticed Mr Hegarty watching the match from the discomfort of his slightly-too-small car. He was parked in the supermarket car park across the busy road and was able to remain out of sight while keeping an eye on things. As Frank scored a header from a corner in the last minute, Hegarty dialled a number on his mobile phone. A moment later he heard Arthur Slugsley pick up.

  ‘Noah Murphy is playing for another team,’ Hegarty said.

  ‘You told me this already,’ Slugsley said. ‘Some ex-pro called Grimsby was putting them through the paces. I heard his methods were from the Stone Age.’

  ‘Yes, but things have changed. They’ve got a new trainer and they actually look good.’

  ‘How good?’

  ‘Good enough for you to be worried.’

  ‘OK,’ Slugsley said. ‘I’ll get someone on it.’

  The match finished and Noah and his team shook hands with their exhausted opponents. Hegarty put his phone away and smiled to himself.

  Name: Piotr Zajac

  Nickname: The Cat because I have got great reflexes. It is my own nickname. Other people call me Super Boom because I talk very loudly.

  Age: 12 7/12

  Position: Goalkeeper. It is only the best position on the whole of the pitch. You have to dive, jump around and be the most athletic and flexible of all of the players. Nothing is better than a fingertip save, a small touch that sends the ball on to the post and then it breaks the striker’s heart. Amazing!

  Likes: Playing on the PlayStation. Teasing my brother. He is so serious all of the time and when I play tricks on him he gets very angry at me and says he is going to hit me with a hammer. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen.

  Dislikes: School. Who wants to sit around all day listening to someone talking and talking and talking? It is boring. There is too much else to do in life.

  Player you’re most like: David de Gea, but I do not have a little beard. Ha, ha.

  Favourite player: Thibaut Courtois. He is the greatest goalkeeper in the world. My favourite outfield player is a Belgian too: Eden Hazard.

  Fav
ourite goal: I prefer saves to goals. Anyone can score a fluke of a goal – my brother once scored a volley from 30m and he is a terrible footballer – but an amazing save – that is never a fluke. Did you see that one Jerzy Dudek made against Andriy Shevchenko when Liverpool won the Champions’ League in 2005? Un-bel-iev-able. I have watched it a million times on YouTube. Dudek is Polish, like me.

  Messi or Ronaldo: Messi is a genius. Ronaldo is the best athlete ever to be on a pitch. I like Lewandowski too, but people always talk too much about goal scorers. If a goalie keeps a clean sheet all of the time, then the team cannot ever lose a match. Think about that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Playing with wingers is more effective against European sides like Brazil than English sides like Wales’

  Ron Greenwood

  It was early in the afternoon and Noah was at home alone, since Simone was working a shift in the cafe. He was doing the washing-up, a job he hated and had been putting off all afternoon. The sink was full to the brim with dirty dishes. Noah squeezed in plenty of washing-up liquid and turned on the hot water full blast. It splashed straight over the plates and cups, over the side of the sink and on to the floor. He sighed and turned off the tap. Now he was going to have to wash the dishes and mop the floor. He decided that he’d definitely buy a dishwasher just as soon as he earned some money.

  As he scrubbed away at a greasy saucepan, his mind drifted to football, as it almost always did. There were only six days left until the tournament now. Six days. He could hardly believe how quickly the last few weeks had gone by. One minute, he’d been sitting in Hegarty’s office being told he was off the team and now, what seemed like five minutes later, the summer holidays were here and they were about to play some of the best schools in the country. His dad appeared to be as excited about the tournament as Noah. When he’d first gone to Boondoggle Bend, they’d spent a lot of their time on Skype talking about mining and wildlife and all things Australian, but for the last little while they’d spoken about nothing but football when they had their weekly chats. It was almost like the old days again. But almost wasn’t good enough. It was one thing talking to Dad through a webcam, it was another to be in the same room with him, and unless Noah was successful they’d only be in the same room again a couple of times in the next year.