Strikers Instinct

by A. D. Rogers

  As he turned to look at Sue Luke realised he was in big trouble and gulped.

  “Are you suggesting that this is all my fault?” Sue asked sweetly.

  “Er no – not at all.” Luke stammered.

  “Because if you were to suggest that – then I think you and I would be probably heading towards a big argument – and you don’t want that do you?”

  Luke shook his head. “But she’s only 14.” he said weakly.

  “She’s 15 in a few days and she isn’t your baby any more. I will have a word with her but don’t you dare take this out on me or Lexi. She’s growing up and you will have to learn to trust her – do you understand me?” Sue demanded.

  Luke nodded his head as Sue also swept from the room. “At least we know where she gets it from.” he muttered to himself. Then he brightened. “I may not be able to do much about her but I can deal with the enemy!” He then went back into the pool room and sat watching Rae like a hawk. Rae could feel Luke’s eyes boring into him and began to feel uncomfortable. Luke then began to talk about some of the conversations he’d had over the years with retired SAS personnel. Apparently they had discussed some of the torture techniques they had heard about from different parts of the world – Luke remarked that it had been a fascinating subject. The following day Dave reported that Rae seemed ready to resume normal training back at the ground.

  “Amazing.” he said. “Don’t know what happened but he seems to have made a miracle recovery!”

  CHAPTER 43

  Although Rae had responded well to treatment he wasn’t fit enough to play in the next game and Adi seemed lost without his partner. The match was a drab affair – ending in a 0-0 draw and it also left Sandy a worried man.

  “Today showed how much we depend on those two – if we stop scoring goals we will soon slide down the table.” he confided to Craig.

  Sandy also had other, bigger worries. Today’s game had been the last in December, it would soon be January which not only meant a New Year but it also meant the transfer window was open. There was a system in place in English football that basically said that you could only move players between clubs during two periods of the year – and the month of January was one of those periods. Many clubs took advantage of this period – either to get rid of players or to add newcomers to boost a struggling team. Sandy had heard worrying rumours that some Premier League players were sniffing around his two star players.

  It was an open secret that Sandy didn’t trust Ed – even though he had made it perfectly clear to him that neither player was for sale. He couldn’t wait for February to arrive but deep down he knew that this year January would be a long month. He tried to put the negative thoughts to one side and set his mind to plan for the next game – which was in the FA cup. Sandy planned to rest Adi and also take the opportunity to give Rae another week to recover. Hopefully this would keep them both fresh but also it would keep them out of the spotlight at this tricky time.

  Back at the training ground the players didn’t seem to share Sandy’s nervousness as they prepared for the next game. Spirits were high and most of them were secretly looking forward to gaining promotion to the Premier League in 2015. There had, however, been an interesting development concerning some of the players. Since they had been to Luke’s house at Christmas, several of the more senior players had realised that the facilities could be useful to them. This meant that Luke often now had to share his early morning swim and stretching routine with various visitors. Luke didn’t mind although occasionally he did miss the tranquillity.

  One morning there was an extra early morning visitor to Luke’s pool room.

  “Morning Harry,” said Luke in surprise, “this is an unexpected pleasure. What do you want?”

  “And it’s always nice to see you as well.” Harry sniffed.

  Both men grinned and then moved to the empty far end of the room so they could talk without being overheard.

  “Two reasons I called by,” explained Harry, “first of all – Lexi’s birthday. As one of her godparents I always take my duties seriously so I wanted to tell you what I am getting her this year.”

  Luke raised his eyes. “As long as it isn’t Rae Bradshaw with a bow round him then I’m sure I’ll be happy.” he muttered.

  Harry looked confused but ignored Luke and continued. “Actually it’s a bit of a present for all of you really, I also wanted to thank you for helping me with the project.” he lowered his voice towards the end of the sentence.

  “Well go on then – spit it out.” Luke prompted.

  Harry glared at Luke but continued. “At the end of January we play Fulham away – I have arranged first class rail travel to London for the four of you, plus tickets to a West End show in the evening, plus an overnight stay in a top hotel.”

  Luke whistled. “Belting! But you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble – it must have cost you a fortune.”

  Harry waved away Luke’s protests. “I have nothing else to spend my money on,” he explained, “so I just plough it back into the Dementia research or spend it on those I love.”

  Luke didn’t know what to say so he changed the subject. “What was the other reason you decided to drag yourself out here so early in the day?”

  “That’s easy,” Harry replied, “I’m tied up solid for the next few days so I just wanted to give you a quick once over.”

  They walked back into the house and entered Luke’s study. Harry inspected Luke’s diary and seemed happy at the way things were going. Both men seemed to agree that Luke was experiencing certain heightened instinctive feelings during the football games. Luke couldn’t put it into words but he said that he just knew that he had to be in certain places at different times during the game. It was weird but it was as if he knew that the ball was going to fall in a certain spot or that a player was going to pass in a certain way. Harry gave Luke a quick check up and gave him a clean bill of health as expected.

  Harry left soon after and Luke went back into the pool room to shake up any stragglers so they could head off to the training ground. It was only as he was heading to the car when Luke remembered what was scheduled for that morning. He groaned as he remembered that Sarah had approached him to ask if he would talk to the players and backroom staff about the dangers associated with Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media. She explained that for once Ed and Sandy were in agreement that following the Jake Pryce saga, the players needed re-educating. Luke didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to large groups of people – it was something he had done the world over and he certainly wasn’t worried talking about IT related issues – but during the year at Wishton Clough he had hoped just to concentrate on football and generally keep a low profile. Then he laughed to himself when he realised, given recent events, how ridiculous that sounded!

  On arrival at the ground he was told that he was due to address the players first thing in the canteen. Sarah was waiting for him and he was pleased to see that Sandy and most of his staff were in attendance and all the players seemed to be there. It was only after a few minutes that he realised that he couldn’t see the familiar figure of Adi amongst the crowd. He decided to get this over with as soon as he could.

  “OK gentlemen,” he began, “I’ve been asked to have a quick word with you today to talk about the dangers of social media.”

  Before he could go any further a hand shot up. “Please sir!” cried Nobby. “Can I go to the toilet?”

  The room fell apart laughing and even Luke had to grin. “I’m sorry Nobby but we don’t have any ladies toilets in here – you’ll have to go outside!”

  The players hooted and cheered then Luke raised his arms. “OK lads – very funny but unfortunately this is a serious subject so pin your ears back and listen.”

  The laughter quickly died away as Luke seemed to consider what to tackle first. Finally he fixed his gaze on Sandy Dunbar.

  “Mr. Dunbar,” he asked, “what would you do if you came in to work today and found a USB stick
bearing the Wishton Clough logo on your desk?”

  Sandy thought for a moment before answering. “I would assume that someone had left it for me to look at and when I had taken my laptop out of my bag I would connect it to my laptop.”

  Luke nodded. “Yes – that’s exactly what most people would do. I assume that you are very protective of your laptop and rarely let it out of your sight?”

  Sandy nodded.

  Luke turned back to the rest of the room. “The reason I’m beginning with this example is to show you just how easy it is to steal information. Most hackers these days don’t even need to get near your laptop or Smartphone to steal your information. They can just drop a USB stick on your desk – or by your parked car. They know it’s human nature to want to look at what is on the USB device and that the majority of people will simply connect it to their laptop or tablet. Once the device has made a connection, then a virus or Trojan is transferred to your device and the hacker can start to take whatever information they want.”

  Sandy looked shocked. “But you said it had a Wishton logo?”

  Luke shrugged. “It’s hard to get at your laptop but why risk it when someone can simply mock up a USB pen with a logo and drop it on your desk – and leave the rest to you.”

  The room stayed silent as Luke went on. “That was a bit of an extreme example,” he said “but I wanted to try to make a point – once you lose control then there is no going back. And it is the same story with all your social media accounts. By and large you seem to be a sensible bunch of people but there are a lot of nasty people out there – just waiting to take advantage of any slip-up you make. There are at least two main ways in which you can mess up in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. First of all you can post something which you regret later and can’t get back – and secondly you may be using weak passwords on all your accounts.”

  Luke paused to let his words take effect. “First of all – passwords. Let me tell you here and now that no password is unbreakable. Give me a few minutes and I will crack all your passwords.”

  A low rumble spread throughout the room. “And you would be surprised to know how many people there are like me in the world! Probably most of them aren’t as modest…..”

  This time an uneasy laugh came from a few of the players.

  Andy raised his hand. Luke nodded towards him.

  “I didn’t even use Twitter – and look what happened to me.” Andy commented.

  “What happened to you was an extreme example – and a combination of bad luck and bad judgement.” Luke explained. “I’ve made sure that the club won’t make the same mistake again – but at the end of the day the main cause was a weak password. But you need to make it hard for the majority of other idiots out there. Don’t use simple passwords, don’t write them down – and don’t share them with anybody. If you want to be really safe the start using a laptop with a biometric device attached.”

  Some of the players were lost.

  “That’s a fingerprint reader Nobby.” Luke smiled and he held up his phone to show them what he meant. “My phone needs a 12 character password plus my thumbprint before I can get access – and even then there are a few other surprises for any would-be hackers.”

  “What kind of surprises?” Sandy asked.

  “Well they wouldn’t be surprises if I told everyone would they?” Luke replied. “And that’s exactly what I am trying to tell you – do not share these kind of secrets with anyone.”

  “However,” continued Luke, “the easiest way to protect yourself is to simply not post anything at all. If you don’t share your lives on Twitter and Facebook then you have nothing to worry about. I know that some people would rather lose their right arms than lose their Twitter account – and I really feel sorry for those sad people,” he glanced around the room, “but that’s the only 100% way of not losing anything – don’t put it out there.”

  “Having said that,” Luke warned, “you still need to be vigilant if you just use your laptop or tablet for browsing or just editing documents. Lots of companies offer you data storage “in the cloud”, in other words they will offer to store your data remotely. Don’t be tempted by these offers. Store your data locally and back up to secure USB sticks or drives. Once those documents and photographs are in the public domain then they are vulnerable.”

  Luke paused once again and looked around the silent room. “I’m sorry if I have frightened you today but to be honest that is exactly what I wanted to do. I don’t want you to tell the world on Facebook that you are going away for the weekend – only for you to come home to find your home burgled. And I don’t want you coming home drunk one night and stupidly publishing things on Twitter that you will regret in the morning. And I definitely don’t want personal photos of you and a loved one splashed all over the papers. 99% of this is common sense – just think before you act.”

  Luke decided he had said enough. “I’ve given you the bare minimum,” he said, “If any of you want to learn more or have any concerns – then you can talk to me at any time.”

  The players began to politely thank Luke for his help – they all seemed in a lot more serious mood now. Luke stood to leave and he noticed someone enter the main door and hurry across to Sandy. Sandy listened for a minute and then jumped to his feet – swearing and shouting. He pushed through the surrounding players and rushed towards the door. Someone grabbed the messenger as he tried to leave.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Adi Abele has just joined a Premier League club!”

  CHAPTER 44

  The rest of the morning passed quickly and soon the players were all back in the canteen eating lunch. The main topic of conversation was Adi. Everyone was disappointed that he was going but they also were unhappy that he seemed to have left without saying goodbye.

  Suddenly the canteen door opened and Adi stood there – seemingly unsure what to do. He nervously stepped forward into the silent room and began to move towards the main focal point of the space. No-one spoke as he turned to address everyone.

  “I’m sorry guys, I really am,” he began, “but this chance has come along and at my age it’s simply too good to turn down. I’m 31 with only six months left on my contract and I’ve been offered a 3 year contract by a Premier League Club. The main thing is that it offers security for my family but it also gives me one last chance in the Prem. I didn’t ask to leave, after Pryce was arrested I came off the transfer list but they still came in and offered the chairman a lot of money for me so it looks like it’s a good deal all round. But I’m sorry to be leaving you lot – and I hope you don’t hold it against me.”

  Nothing happened for a few seconds and Adi began to look as if he was going to cry when suddenly all the players rose from their seats and began to applaud. Then they surged towards him – cheering and shouting as they moved. “Well done you jammy sod!” was one of the less-juicy comments as the players congratulated and hugged Adi. It all proved too much for him as he finally did begin to cry.

  “I’ll never forget you lot.”

  Finally he stumbled from the room with the cheers still ringing in his ears. Sandy was waiting outside for him and Adi was genuinely scared to face him. Before Adi could speak Sandy embraced him and whispered in his ear.

  “Don’t worry – I would have done exactly the same thing if I were in your shoes. I wish you the best of luck and make sure you don’t forget us!”

  “I’m sorry boss.” Adi said sadly. “I wanted to talk to you as soon as I heard about the offer but my agent and the chairman said we had to give them an answer within the hour so there was no time to waste.”

  “Don’t worry son,” Sandy replied, “I know exactly how these things work. Just make sure you score a few goals for your new club.”

  Adi shuffled away towards his waiting agent who smiled apologetically at Sandy before he ushered Adi into the car, then they were gone. Sandy sighed as he thought back to his conversation a few minutes ago with Ed Tierney. Ed repeated exactly
what Adi had said and stressed that it was a good deal for Wishton – Sandy now had money to spend on a new, younger striker but Ed just didn’t understand. They had sold something that money couldn’t buy – an in-form goal scorer and one half of a formidable striking partnership.

  Sandy’s fears sadly proved to be justified. The next two games Wishton didn’t score a goal – and Rae seemed lost without Adi. For the first time in many weeks Wishton slid to second place in the League table and the warning bells began to ring. The following week was FA cup weekend so Sandy took the opportunity to experiment and played a different system to try to help Rae – but nothing seemed to work. In fact the opposite happened and Wishton went down to their first defeat in months – and they were out of the cup. Sandy urged the players not to panic but secretly he was worried. He had two weeks left in January in which to try to find a replacement striker – and he also knew that some clubs were still sniffing around Rae.

  The following week Wishton were back in action in the League – at home to Bournemouth. Sandy hoped that the long journey from the south coast would have taken the edge off the Bournemouth team but sadly the opposite was true. A goal in either half sealed the points for Bournemouth and shocked the home fans. At Christmas they had seemed unstoppable and many fans were secretly looking forward to visiting Premier League grounds next year – but now it looked as if it could all be slipping away.

  The mood was sombre at training on Monday morning. Luke tried to spread some cheer but no-one seemed interested and most of the sessions that day took place in near-silence. Just after lunch Luke was warming up with a few of the reserves with laps around the pitch when he was joined by Rae who began jogging alongside him.

  “Do you mind if I have a word?” Rae asked nervously.

  Luke glanced around and saw they were trotting alone on the edge of the small group. “Go ahead,” he muttered, “but I hope that this has nothing to do with my daughter.”