Starting Eleven

by Bali Rai

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  About the Author

  Also by Bali Rai

  Copyright

  About the Book

  ‘Come on!’ I shouted to my team mates. ‘Let’s start playing!’

  The local youth club are putting an under-elevens squad together – and Dal, Chris, Abs and Jason are determined to be picked. They know they’re the best players in their school – but what if that isn’t good enough and they don’t make the team?

  A brand-new series from award-winning author Bali Rai.

  Chapter 1

  Monday

  ‘MAKE SURE YOU eat all of your lunch,’ Mum shouted as I left the house.

  ‘OK!’ I replied as Chris grinned at me.

  ‘That’s exactly what my mum said to me,’ he said.

  My name’s Dal and Chris is my best mate. We’ve known each other since infants – he’s like my brother, and we always do everything together.

  We walked down my road, Persimmon Drive, and round onto Ethel Street, towards our school, Rushton Juniors. Rushie for short. It was horrible being back at school. The summer holidays went by so quickly! It was like they had never happened. But at least we had football to look forward to. And we loved football. I yawned as we got to the school gates.

  ‘You could get an elephant in that hole,’ said Chris. ‘A whole herd of elephants.’

  Chris is always making really bad jokes. He’s well known for it.

  ‘A big elephant – like my sister?’ I asked jokingly.

  ‘No, bigger. About the same size as my sister!’ replied Chris.

  Our sisters, Jas and Veronica, were best friends too. They were both fourteen. Four years older than us. They were weird – always talking about boys and make-up. Or sending each other texts and instant messages. At the same time!

  ‘Good job they ain’t here,’ he said. ‘Veronica would go crazy if she heard me call her an elephant.’

  ‘I know. Do you remember when you found her mobile phone and sent those texts to her boyfriend? She was really angry,’ I replied.

  ‘Yeah – she made me do all the household chores for a month so she wouldn’t tell Dad.’

  Chris grinned. Then I asked about football – or rather The Football. We went to a local youth club and they had an under-elevens football team called the Rushton Reds. We both really wanted to play for them this season and the trials were this week.

  ‘The notice said tomorrow – at the youth club,’ Chris told me.

  ‘I’ve got new boots,’ I said proudly. ‘The same ones that Steven Gerrard wears.’

  ‘I got new boots too,’ replied Chris. ‘My dad got them from Rushton Sports in town.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll get into the team?’ I asked.

  Chris nodded. ‘We should do. We’re the best in our school.’

  ‘I hope we do,’ I said.

  I was feeling a bit nervous about the trials. I mean, I knew we were good players – we were great at football. But what if we weren’t good enough? What if my mates made it and I didn’t? I’d be gutted. I had to play for the Rushton Reds!

  ‘We’ll be OK,’ said Chris. ‘As long as we play our best, we’ll be fine. And with new boots too. It’ll be easy . . .’

  I hoped so.

  At school we met up with Abs and Jason. They were mad about football too and the four of us were going to the trials together. They were standing by the school gates. Abs smiled at us. His black hair was shaved to his head and there were lines cut into it which started at his temples and ran round to the back of his head. Tramlines, they’re called.

  ‘We battered them!’ he was saying to Jason, talking about his favourite team, Manchester United.

  ‘No you didn’t – I saw it on Match of the Day. You were lucky. It was never a penalty.’

  Jason was the tallest. His blond hair was in a new style too – gelled into stiff spikes. He’s got freckles and a mouth that looks too big for his face. And his ears stick out. But he’s brilliant at football even if some of the other boys call him ‘Jughead’.

  ‘It was a definite foul!’ replied Abs, still going on about the game. ‘It’s not like when Chelsea play. The ref always helps them . . .’

  Jason raised his eyebrows at the mention of his favourite team. He winked at me and Chris before answering. ‘Just ’cos your team isn’t the only good one any more!’ he said. ‘You should learn to be more humble, Abs.’

  ‘Bet you don’t even know what that means!’

  Jason just shrugged. ‘I don’t. I just heard the manager say it on Match of the Day,’ he admitted.

  ‘Cabbage-faced glory hunter,’ said Abs.

  The rest of us looked at each other before bursting into laughter.

  ‘What?’ asked Abs, looking confused.

  ‘Cabbage-faced?’ said Chris. ‘Where’d you get that . . .?’

  At lunch time I didn’t wait for the other lads. I was starving and they wouldn’t hurry up. Instead they were having the same conversation as before, about the Premier League and what had happened over the weekend. Only this time Chris was talking about our favourite team, Liverpool FC. I was the first to get to the dinner hall and I went straight for the sausages and chips – my favourite. The dinner lady knew me and she was really nice.

  ‘Do you want an extra sausage and some more chips, love?’ she asked me.

  ‘Yes please, Miss Jones!’ I said.

  She gave me three fat sausages and a pile of chips. My plate looked like it had a small mountain of food on it. The smell was amazing and I’d put loads of tomato ketchup on it too! My stomach was rumbling even before I’d sat down. By the time the other lads had joined me, I was nearly halfway through my lunch.

  ‘We wondered where you’d gone,’ said Chris as they sat down with their lunches too.

  ‘I was hungry,’ I explained. ‘And besides, you were talking about the same things as before.’

  ‘Abs was saying Liverpool are rubbish,’ Chris told me.

  ‘They are!’ said Abs through a mouthful of pizza. Bits of it flew out and landed all over the table.

  ‘Ehhh!’ said Jason. ‘Can’t you wait until after you’ve swallowed your food?’ he asked. ‘My mum would kill me if I did that.’

  ‘She’s not here though, is she?’ replied Abs.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Jason, going red and looking a bit angry.

  ‘Oh, stop arguing,’ I told them. ‘Let’s talk about something else . . .’

  ‘Yeah, like how your team was lucky to beat Aston Villa four–nil on Sunday,’ said Jason, his face becoming one big silly grin.

  Despite not wanting to talk about the weekend I couldn’t help myself. Jason was talking about Liverpool and they were my favourite thing ever. There wasn’t a song or a TV show that matched them. There was no way he was going to get away with it, even though we spent ages every day winding each other up.

  ‘Lucky?’ I asked. ‘How can it be lucky when we scored four goals? Four!’

  I held up four fingers to show Jason exactly what I meant.

  ‘Lucky . . .’ replied Jason, only this time he said it quietly.

  ‘EAT YOUR LUNCHES IN SILENCE!’ came a shout from behind us.

  We didn’t need to look to know who it was. It was Mr Williams, the deputy headmaster, and he was always shouting at everyone.

  ‘I bet he even shouts at home,’ said Chris in a whisper.

  I nodded.

  ‘Get me my sli
ppers! Where’s my toast?’ Chris said in a slightly louder voice.

  ‘I feel sorry for his wife,’ said Jason.

  ‘He’s too ugly to have a wife,’ added Abs.

  We laughed as quietly as we could manage and then I went back to worrying about the football trials.

  Chapter 2

  Tuesday

  WE SPENT THE whole of the next day talking about the football trials, which started straight after school.

  ‘I hope I can play in my best position,’ Abs said during morning break. ‘I love being a striker!’

  ‘What – from the bench? Because that’s where you’ll be watching us play from!’ asked Chris, before opening a bag of cashew nuts. He was always eating nuts.

  ‘Leave it,’ said Abs. ‘Your jokes are rubbish.’ He pulled a face.

  ‘Like your jokes?’ replied Chris. ‘You tell some of the unfunniest jokes in the world.’

  ‘I don’t think “unfunniest” is a proper word,’ Jason said.

  ‘Yes it is – my sister uses it,’ replied Chris, throwing a cashew nut at Jason.

  Jason dodged and the nut flew past his head. ‘Oi!’ he shouted as Chris smirked.

  ‘Bet it’s not in the dictionary,’ continued Abs, still going on about the word ‘unfunniest’.

  ‘You think the other players will be better than us?’ I asked, changing the subject to something I wanted to talk about.

  ‘No!’ said Jason.

  ‘How do you know?’ I added, pleased that they seemed so sure.

  ‘Because we’re too good,’ replied Abs.

  ‘When we play at the park we’re always the best ones there.’

  ‘My dad showed me this Brazilian lad on YouTube,’ said Chris. ‘They call him “The Seal”. He was running with the ball on his head.’

  ‘No way!’ the rest of us said together.

  ‘It’s true. I’ll show you if you like. He was wicked,’ replied Chris, before stuffing some more nuts into his mouth and crunching on them noisily.

  ‘I don’t think he’s going to be there,’ said Abs. ‘Or Wayne Rooney.’

  Jason groaned. ‘Trust you to bring a United player into it,’ he said.

  ‘We were talking about the best,’ Abs told him. ‘So I mentioned the best.’

  I told Abs and Jason to shut up.

  ‘We aren’t just going to walk into the team, are we?’ I added.

  ‘Prob’ly,’ replied Chris.

  ‘But we have to show the coach what we can do,’ I insisted.

  Abs shrugged. ‘We will,’ he said, acting confident.

  ‘Yeah – and what if you don’t make it?’ I asked him, starting to sound like a skipping CD.

  ‘P.M.A.,’ he replied.

  ‘Huh?’ asked Jason.

  ‘Positive Mental Attitude,’ said Abs. ‘My dad says that’s what you need to succeed. We have to think like winners to be winners. That’s how I know for certain that I’ll play for Man U when I’m older.’

  After school I walked home with Chris. When we got to my house, I saw my dad’s car on the drive. He’d finished work early, just like he’d promised me.

  ‘My dad’s going to drive us to the trial,’ I said to Chris.

  ‘Nice one,’ he replied. ‘I’ll just run home and get my kit.’

  Chris lives around the corner and he was back in ten minutes, with a sports bag hanging from his shoulders. I was standing by the car with my dad when he arrived.

  ‘Hello, Mr Singh,’ Chris said to my dad.

  ‘Hey, Chris,’ replied my dad with a smile.

  ‘Did you remember your new boots?’ I asked my best mate.

  ‘Yeah – my mum had my stuff ready for me. Are we picking up Abs and Jason too?’

  ‘They’re coming with Jason’s mum,’ my dad told him.

  ‘I’m nervous,’ I admitted.

  My dad ruffled my hair. ‘You’ll be fine. Just do your best – you can’t do any more than that.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Right – let’s go!’ Dad said. He looked more excited than me and Chris.

  The drive to the youth club took ten minutes. It was on the edge of Stoneygate Park and the football pitch was behind the clubhouse. We met up with Jason and Abs in the car park.

  ‘Hi, Mrs Partridge,’ I said to Jason’s mum.

  ‘Hello, Dal,’ she replied.

  ‘Are you staying to watch us?’ I added.

  ‘Of course I am,’ she beamed. ‘You’ll be great – all of you.’

  I nodded, looking around the car park for the competition. There were loads of cars and lots of other parents. And more importantly there were lots of other boys too.

  I nudged Chris. ‘Have you seen how many players there are?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah – I didn’t think there’d be so many,’ he told me.

  I looked around again and my stomach started to do funny things. I was so nervous. But I held it in and took a few deep breaths. We could only do our best, I told myself, repeating what my dad had said.

  *

  There were fifty lads in total, according to Abs. He’d counted them. The coach, Mr Turner, came over. He was friendly looking but with a serious face. He split us into five groups for the warm-up. I was in the same group as Abs, but Chris and Jason were separate. We ran and did short sprints and then worked through a course of ladders and cones. Very quickly a few lads had to stop because they weren’t fit enough and that made Abs laugh.

  ‘We’re going to breeze through this,’ he whispered to me as we lined up to take another run through the ladders. ‘Half of them are tired already and we haven’t even started playing yet.’

  Mr Turner blew his whistle and told us to stop. ‘Stay in your groups and get two balls for each group,’ he said, nodding towards a pile of footballs. ‘I want to see what your juggling skills are like.’

  Abs ran over to the balls and picked up two. He brought them back to our group and gave one to a lad called Steven.

  ‘Split your group into two and form a circle each,’ instructed Turner. ‘I want to see the ball in the air. Two touches each. One to control the pass and one to lay it off. I do not want to see the ball touch the floor!’

  We started doing what he’d asked. Straight away the ball hit the ground. We tried again and still we couldn’t get it right. One boy, Dipesh, couldn’t control it for toffee. Every time he got the ball it flew off him at weird angles.

  ‘Come on!’ shouted Turner. ‘This is the easy bit!’

  I decided to concentrate better. I took the ball and juggled it from foot to foot and then sent it looping into the air for Abs. Abs took it on his left thigh and then cushioned a pass to Steven. Steven did exactly the same as Abs and the ball came back to me. I took it on my right foot and then passed to Dipesh. The ball came off his shin and shot off out of our circle.

  ‘Dipesh!’ shouted Steven and the fifth lad, Gurinder.

  ‘Soz,’ replied Dipesh, going red in the face.

  Mr Turner blew his whistle five minutes later.

  ‘That was horrible!’ he told us. ‘I asked you to do the simplest thing and half of you look like you’ve got lead shoes on. And you want me to put you in my team? I’d rather coach the girls!’

  I looked at Abs and swallowed.

  ‘This is going to be really hard,’ I said.

  Chapter 3

  THE TRAINING LASTED for another twenty minutes. Then it was time for a game. Mr Turner split us up. He made two groups of twenty because ten boys had already given up. I smiled as he put Abs, Jason and Chris into the same team as me. We also had Steven, Gurinder and Dipesh on our side. And a group of lads who we hadn’t met yet.

  ‘We should go and introduce ourselves,’ I suggested to Chris.

  ‘Yeah – it’ll be good for team spirit,’ replied Abs. ‘Man U’s manager is always saying how important team spirit is.’

  ‘You sitting on the bench would be good,’ joked Jason.

  ‘Shut up, Captain Flowerpants,’ said Abs.

&nb
sp; I looked at Chris and we burst into laughter. Jason went red. Captain Flowerpants was Jason’s other nickname after Jughead.

  ‘That’s an old joke,’ he protested.

  ‘Still funny though,’ said Abs.

  The joke about Captain Flowerpants had started the year before. We’d been doing PE at school and Jason forgot his shorts. Our teacher, Mr Warner, made Jason do PE in his pants. And his pants had little swirls on them that looked like flowers. We’d been ribbing him about it ever since.

  I went over to the other boys and started to introduce myself and the others. As I was doing that another coach, Mr James, walked over to us. He’d been helping Mr Turner with the warm-up but hadn’t spoken to us yet. He looked and sounded like someone you wouldn’t mess with.

  ‘OK, lads,’ he said in a northern accent. ‘Let’s get you organized . . .’

  He split us up into defence, midfield and attack, with Gurinder as the goalkeeper. That was Gurinder’s position and he even had his own brand-new gloves with him.

  ‘Wicked,’ he replied, smiling.

  Mr James randomly picked out eleven of us to start the game, but neither me nor Chris were in the team.

  ‘Sir!’ moaned Chris.

  ‘Relax, son,’ replied Mr James, ‘you’ll get your turn. It’s rolling substitutes, which means that you’ll be called off and sent on throughout the game. This is just the first trial. If you are asked to come back on Thursday, we’ll sort out who plays where then. For today, just do your best . . .’

  I looked at Chris, who smiled. He was obviously over his moan.

  ‘Not everyone will make the squad,’ added Mr James, ‘but those of you who do should know that our first game is this Saturday morning . . .’

  This time I smiled. A big, beaming smile. I couldn’t believe the first game was so soon! It made me even more determined to play for the Reds. There was no way I wasn’t going to play come Saturday. No way.

  The game kicked off five minutes later and that was when we saw Adam for the first time. He was on the opposing side and he was huge – tall and wide. He looked fifteen years old, not ten, and I gulped.

  ‘Wow!’ said Chris in amazement when he saw Adam. ‘He’s a giant!’

  ‘So?’ said Abs, getting all cocky. ‘He might be big, but can he play?’