by R. A. Spratt
‘You do realise that you’re the coach, and you’re supposed to tell them what to do?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘What?’ exclaimed Mr Green. ‘I thought it was just my job to bring the balls and call an ambulance if one of them breaks a wrist. I was planning to spend my time sitting in the Rolls Royce doing paperwork.’
‘No, Father, a coach is actually meant to do coaching,’ explained Samantha.
‘You have to run drills, explain tactics, and generally teach the team how to play soccer,’ added Michael.
‘I have to speak to them?’ said Mr Green disbelievingly.
His children nodded.
Mr Green’s shoulders slumped as he trudged over to talk to his young soccer team. ‘Ahem,’ he began, clearing his throat. ‘All right, well then, let’s see, to start with …’
‘You’re not being paid by the hour now, get on with it,’ heckled Nanny Piggins.
‘All right. Run round the field ten times!’ ordered Mr Green.
The children set off. And even though running around a sports field is one of the most physically painful and awfully boring things children are regularly forced to do, they were actually relieved to not have to stand there looking at Mr Green anymore. Plus it was a cold night and they desperately needed to do something to warm up.
Nanny Piggins left Mr Green to it. She went over to the sidelines where she set up a camping stove and got to work making hot chocolate for when the practice session was over. It was a pleasant way to while away a couple of hours. Making hot chocolate, testing it until it was all gone, then making more. All while watching Mr Green make a complete twit of himself.
Once the children finished running (Mr Green had not kept count, so they got away with only doing three laps), Mr Green started by trying to demonstrate how to dribble the ball. But he had no idea how to do it, so he tripped over several times: first over the ball, then over his own feet, then over Michael’s foot (because Michael could not resist sticking it out as his father lumbered past).
Next Mr Green tried teaching the children how to shoot for goal. You never would have imagined that a fully grown man could find it so difficult to get something as small as a basketball into something as large as a soccer goal. But after seventy-nine attempts Mr Green gave up and grumbled, ‘Well, you get the general idea,’ and let the children have a go.
The practice eventually drew to a close five minutes before scheduled time when the last of the basketballs was lost into the river running alongside the oval. (They had already lost two into oncoming traffic on the street, three into unclimbable trees, one into the blades of a passing helicopter and one to a local hoodlum who simply caught it and ran off.)
Then the children got their first enjoyable exercise for the night when Mr Green blew his whistle twice, announcing practice had finished, and they all ran over to Nanny Piggins for hot chocolate. (Nanny Piggins made a mental note to put Mr Green’s whistle under the tyre of his Rolls Royce before he backed out of the driveway the next morning.)
‘Well, children, I hope that wasn’t too dreadful,’ sympathised Nanny Piggins.
‘It was fun to see Father try to run,’ admitted Derrick.
‘I liked the new words Mr Green taught us when he fell over,’ said Samson Wallace. (He and his sister, Margaret, were in the team because Nanny Anne scheduled them to have seven hours of outdoor exercise per week.)
‘Yes, you must be sure to use one or two of those words on Nanny Anne as soon as you get home,’ suggested Nanny Piggins naughtily.
‘Well, I thought that went rather well,’ said Mr Green as he limped over to join them. (He did not want to speak to any of them, but he could not resist the smell of hot chocolate. Plus, he supposed, with the Father of the Year Competition being so close and the weather being so cold, he probably should offer his children a lift home.) ‘I think we’re ready for our first match on Saturday morning.’
‘You expect us to play a match?!’ exclaimed Samantha.
‘Against another team?!’ asked Derrick.
‘And on Saturday morning when all the good cartoons are on?!’ asked Nanny Piggins, deeply shocked.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Green. ‘That’s how a soccer league works.’
‘I’m sorry, children,’ apologised Nanny Piggins. ‘I would have insisted on twenty chocolate bars each if I’d known that joining a soccer team would have such dreadful ramifications.’
When their father dropped them off at home, barely slowing down the car long enough for them to get out before speeding off back to his law office, the children were finally able to talk freely with Nanny Piggins.
‘How do you think the game is going to go on Saturday?’ asked Derrick.
‘I’m sure you’ll be fine,’ said Nanny Piggins warmly.
The children just looked at her.
‘I do,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You all know how to play soccer. We play it in the house all the time when it’s raining.’
‘Yes, but that’s soccer played to Nanny Piggins’ rules,’ said Samantha.
‘It bears more resemblance to cage-fighting than actual soccer,’ agreed Michael.
‘Well, the team you’re playing might be worse than you,’ suggested Nanny Piggins.
‘Do you think that’s likely?’ asked Derrick.
‘Anything is possible,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The players in the other team might all have terrible head colds, or dreadful vertigo that makes them dizzy and fall over a lot. Or a huge flood could wash the sports field away entirely, so we can stay home and play pirates. It’s always best to be optimistic.’
But on Saturday morning when they arrived at the match they were disappointed to discover that there had been no natural disasters during the night, and the sports ground was still intact. They soon realised that the next ninety minutes were going to be awful, because the other team were clearly a lot more athletic. They wove back and forth, kicking balls around with the precision and grace of synchronised swimmers. Also the other team were all a lot bigger and a lot taller. It seems Mr Green, not knowing the age of any of his children when he went to sign up, had simply guessed. As a result they were in the under 14s competition when they should have been in the under 12s. And, thanks to testosterone and other growth-related hormones, the difference in size between a twelve-year-old and a fourteen-year-old is huge.
‘Oh my goodness, we’re going to be slaughtered,’ said Samantha.
‘No, you’re not! There’s no way a children’s sports league would be allowed to set up an impromptu abattoir in the middle of a game!’ said Nanny Piggins, looking about nervously. (Talk of slaughter and abattoirs made any pig anxious.)
‘Samantha just means we’re going to be beaten,’ said Derrick.
‘At playing soccer,’ added Michael. ‘I don’t think they’ll beat us with sticks. At least not when anyone is looking …’
‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘My advice is this – Derrick and Michael, stay as far away from the ball as possible.’
‘What about me?’ panicked Samantha.
‘Run, run now and hide in the girls’ toilets,’ urged Nanny Piggins.
Samantha took off, running like the wind. (The tragedy is that if she’d had a proper coach who had taught her how to run that fast while dribbling the ball, she would have been immediately signed up by Manchester United.)
Ninety humiliating minutes later, Mr Green’s team lost 189 to 1. (And their one goal was not even scored by them. It was an own goal, scored when one of their opponents was celebrating so hard he accidentally kicked the ball into the wrong net.) When the children came off the field they did not even get the telling off from Mr Green they were expecting. He was so horrified by the awfulness of his team he had gone over to the other side of the pitch and was pretending to be one of the opposition spectators.
‘Mr Green, come over here and speak to your team immediately!’ demanded Nanny Piggins in a loud carrying voice.
Mr Green looked about as though he did not k
now who she was talking to.
‘Don’t make me come over there and get you,’ Nanny Piggins warned.
Mr Green hung his head and trudged back to where his team stood. He did not like being dragged by Nanny Piggins. It hurt the back of his head to be scraped along the ground, and it took him forever to fix the bite marks on his trousers using his desk stapler. Mr Green turned to look at the poor, exhausted, bruised and beaten children.
‘Well, look here you er … children. This really isn’t good enough,’ blathered Mr Green. ‘When I signed up to coach this team it was on the clear understanding, although not precisely stated but obviously implied, that I would in no way be publicly humiliated …’
‘What is he saying?’ Nanny Piggins asked Derrick.
‘I think he said we embarrassed him,’ explained Derrick.
‘What?!’ exploded Nanny Piggins, interrupting Mr Green mid-waffle.
‘I – er …’ said Mr Green, desperately trying to work out what had caused his nanny to take offence.
‘How dare you say that these poor children have embarrassed you?!’ ranted Nanny Piggins. ‘You, sir, are the embarrassment. You don’t know how to play soccer. You don’t know how to coach soccer. You don’t even know how to go into a shop and buy a soccer ball!’
Nanny Piggins was just working herself up into a full rant when Mr Green silenced her by suddenly and unexpectedly bursting into tears.
‘What am I going to do?’ wailed Mr Green.
There is something especially pitiful about watching a fully grown man (wearing a tracksuit over a three-piece suit) cry, so that even Nanny Piggins relented.
‘Pull yourself together, it’s just a children’s soccer league. It doesn’t matter if they win or lose,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They are just supposed to be having fun and getting exercise.’
‘But,’ sobbed Mr Green, ‘I invited the Senior Partner to come and watch next week’s game.’
‘Well that was silly,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘And I told him they were the best team in the league,’ wept Mr Green.
‘It’s wrong to lie,’ chastised Samantha.
‘What am I going to do?’ wailed Mr Green.
Nanny Piggins sighed. ‘You’d better fetch your cheque book.’
‘I can’t afford to fly in short professional footballers. I know, I looked into it,’ spluttered Mr Green.
‘No, but you can afford to buy 100 family-sized bars of chocolate,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Why on earth would I do that?’ asked Mr Green.
‘To bribe me to coach the team for you,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
Mr Green immediately stopped crying and clutched Nanny Piggins by the trotter. ‘Oh, would you? Thank you, thank you so much.’
‘You’d better run to your car and fetch your cheque book quickly before I change my mind,’ warned Nanny Piggins.
And so when the next practice session came around it was Nanny Piggins who was wearing the tracksuit. She still made Mr Green come. It was his job to hand out doughnuts (she did not trust him to make hot chocolate) and sit quietly in the corner, not speaking unless spoken to.
‘All right, children,’ said Nanny Piggins, addressing her team. ‘Soccer is a complicated game. There are a lot of skills involving ducking and weaving. And lots of tactics involving strategy and thinking. All of which would take months, if not years, to learn, and which would be very boring for all of us. I do, however, know an awful lot about projectiles. Blasting things, usually me, enormous distances is my area of expertise. So we will win the game on Saturday because tonight I am going to teach you how to kick the living daylights out of a soccer ball. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ said all the children in unison.
‘That doesn’t matter. Understanding is entirely overrated,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now, have you all brought along the pictures as I instructed?’ She had told all the children to bring along a photograph or drawing of the person they most detested in the entire world.
‘Yes,’ said Samantha. (She had a picture of her maths teacher in her pocket.)
‘What do you need them for?’ asked Derrick. (He had a picture of Barry Nichols, the school bully.)
‘I’ll demonstrate,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Samson, did you bring along that picture of Nanny Anne I asked for?’
‘Yes,’ said Samson. ‘I’ve got one of her accepting a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records for getting the most starch into one pair of underpants.’
‘Perfect,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now, children, watch closely as I use some sticky tape to attach this picture to a soccer ball.’
The children watched Nanny Piggins. They had not been expecting to get an impromptu craft lesson.
‘I will place the ball on the ground so that Nanny Anne is looking at me, then take a few steps back. Now, this is the important bit – I shall stare hard at Nanny Anne’s face …’ Nanny Piggins glared at the photograph so fiercely that the few children who had been foolish enough to turn and look at her instead of at the ball had to flinch away in fear, ‘… concentrating all my feelings of anger and resentment, pushing them down, deep down into my foot …’ Nanny Piggins was silent for a moment while she pushed her feelings. ‘And now I shall give Nanny Anne the good kick she deserves!’
Nanny Piggins ran forward and kicked the ball. Or rather she launched the ball. And because she kicked it so hard, it looked and sounded like it had been blasted out of a cannon. The black and white ball flew the entire length of the soccer field and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
‘Wow!’ said Derrick.
‘How do you do that?’ asked Michael.
‘She really is a very annoying woman,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
‘But we’ll never be able to kick like that,’ said Samantha.
‘Of course you will. Nanny Anne is annoying but she has never tried to teach me integers. I should imagine your feelings for your maths teacher are even stronger,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Come along, everyone take out your photographs and use the sticky tape to attach them to a ball.’
The rest of the practice session went brilliantly. Young children are such easy targets for bullies, that every member of the team had lots of pent-up emotion towards some spiteful adult or cruel child. Balls were soon flying the length and breadth of the field. When Samantha remembered the time they had studied quadratic equations, she kicked the ball so hard she actually cracked one of the goal posts.
And so the day of the big match arrived. The Green children’s confidence began to waver when they saw the size and athleticism of their opponents.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Samantha. ‘We can’t dribble or weave, we don’t know any set plays and the referee will never let us stick eleven different photographs to the soccer ball before we start play.’
‘Nine different photos,’ Derrick reminded her. ‘Three of us had photographs of Barry Nichols.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Nanny Piggins with complete confidence. ‘Tactics are just for people who haven’t got the skill to really kick the ball properly.’
‘Here he comes, here he comes!’ squealed Mr Green excitedly, as he saw the Senior Partner’s car pull up.
‘What did I tell you about not speaking until you are spoken to?’ asked Nanny Piggins sternly.
‘Sorry,’ mouthed Mr Green silently.
‘Ah, Green,’ said the Senior Partner. ‘Is this your team?’
Mr Green looked at Nanny Piggins to see if he had permission to speak. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ said Mr Green proudly. (He was not a great conversationalist.)
‘I look forward to seeing you all play,’ said the Senior Partner, smiling broadly at the children, ‘but remember the most important thing is that you have fun playing with your friends.’
‘No,’ said Margaret Wallace, ‘Nanny Piggins says the most important thing is that we have fun kicking our enemies.’
The Senior Partner’s brow creased as he puzzled over this st
atement. But he did not get an opportunity to ask any questions because at that moment the referee blew his whistle to start the game and the children jogged onto the field.
At first Mr Green’s team were indeed out-played. Their opponents wove around them and effortlessly passed back and forth to score a classic goal. But that is where they made their big mistake. You see after you score a goal, the other team gets to take the ball back to the middle and kick off again.
This was Samantha’s job, so she was standing at the halfway line thinking dark thoughts about her maths teacher, waiting for the referee to get in position. She did not hear the taunts from the other team of ‘It’s just a girl’ and ‘Let’s get her’. She was too busy taking all her repressed rage and pushing it down into her foot. As soon as she registered the sound of the whistle she leapt forward and slammed her boot into the ball using every ounce of strength in her body.
The ball flew the length of the field, slamming into the opposition goalkeeper. It hit him so hard in the stomach he doubled over and stumbled backwards, collapsing on the ground so the ball rolled off his stomach into the net. And that is how Mr Green’s team scored their first goal.
From that point on it was a bloodbath. Mr Green’s team were blasting the soccer ball at the goal as if they had bazookas for legs. In the end, the opposition team forfeited the game at halftime because two of their players had broken kneecaps (their fault for standing in front of Margaret Wallace when she was shooting for goal) and the rest of them were too afraid to go back on the field again.
‘Well, Green,’ said the Senior Partner, ‘you’ve done some extraordinary work with these children. They’re a pretty weedy bunch to look at, but you’ve certainly taught them how to kick.’
‘Thank you, thank you so much, sir,’ grovelled Mr Green. ‘Please allow me to run and fetch you an ice-cream from the kiosk.’
‘Okay, but shouldn’t you be getting ice-cream for all your team for winning their game?’ asked the Senior Partner.
Mr Green gulped. He instinctively disliked doing nice things for children. ‘Oh no, I think they’re all lactose intolerant,’ he lied.