by Dan Freedman
And now he was ignoring her because she’d asked him to do some English homework for the school he’d begged her to let him join.
Jamie’s heart started to feel heavy. There was a painful lump inside his throat. He felt embarrassed. He was lucky to have his mum. He wanted to go downstairs and hug her and say he was sorry.
He wanted her to be proud of him like she used to be.
Jamie blinked away a tear. He sat down at his desk and turned on the lamp. He could feel the glow of the bulb against his cheek as he stared at the empty white pages of his workbook. How was he going to fill them?
He tried to remember what Mr Garrick had asked them to do for homework.
“A story,” he’d said. “A story of triumph over adversity, of winning against the odds. . .”
Jamie pulled the lid from his pen and began writing. He knew the story he wanted to tell.
Mike Johnson – Broken Dreams
Jamie took great care to style each letter as neatly as possible, before grasping his ruler and underlining the title perfectly.
Then the strangest thing happened: once he started writing, he couldn’t stop.
Normally when he did his homework – if he did his homework – each sentence would take for ever. But somehow, tonight, whole paragraphs were spilling out of his brain and on to the paper in front of him. Because he was writing about football, it seemed easy.
As he recalled the story of Mike being spotted playing in the street and being invited to go for a trial, Jamie’s thoughts instantly became words on the page. For once, it didn’t seem difficult or boring; he just remembered and wrote.
After an hour of furious writing, Jamie put down his pen to give his aching hand a rest. He flicked back over the pages. He had written so much. Now he just had to do the ending:
Mike Johnson walked out of the hospital and he knew that his Hawkstone career was over before it had even begun.
So in the end, Mike Johnson never became a Hawks hero. He never became a millionaire either. He was luckier than that. He became a happy man.
After he’d finished his story, Jamie went downstairs to show it to his mum.
She was watching TV. Jamie crept up behind her. He wanted it to be a surprise.
“I don’t want you to hate me, Mum,” he said, giving her his story to read.
“Hate you?” his mum said, turning off the TV to look at Jamie. “How could I hate you? You’re the most precious thing in my life. That’s why I want the best for you.”
“I know,” Jamie said.
Jamie’s mum had really liked his story about her dad. She’d said it was vivid and she was sure it would get a good mark, even if it was about football.
And they had agreed that if his school work improved next term, then Jamie playing football was OK. Best of all was that Jamie’s mum had lifted the ban during the holidays as “an act of good faith”.
Now Jamie was back!
The next day he burst into Sunningdale at his very top speed. He had so much energy to burn after being locked in his room for so long. All that time thinking had only made him more determined to do everything he could to earn a spot in the A’s.
Jamie ran towards a pitch right on the far side of the park. He sprinted straight past the First Team boys who were in the middle of their daily training session. He didn’t have any more time to watch what they were up to and he didn’t care what they thought of him. There were only three weeks of the holidays left. He had to concentrate on himself.
Jamie sat down on a bench and got out Kenny’s book. In his room, he’d found a whole section on wingers. It was the perfect training programme for him.
Here’s what it said:
Wing Play
Two of the fundamentals in wing play are pace and dribbling.
Jamie nodded his head and carried on reading.
First, we’ll deal with pace, which is one of the biggest trump cards any winger can possess.
The most precious pace in football is over five yards. Defenders may be quicker than you over longer distances but, if you can knock the ball past them and get in a cross or a shot, as a winger you have done your job.
The following drill, if repeated consistently with all your effort, will increase your pace over the first five yards. And remember, your pace is not only for attacking. When your team doesn’t have the ball, you need to tuck in, track your man and help win the ball back.
Jamie knew he had natural pace. All his old sprint medals from The Grove were evidence of that. But he also knew that to get into the A’s he had to get even quicker. His eyes scanned the drill.
The Drill
1. Start by performing small bouncing movements on the spot.
2. Turn to the left, sprint, and touch a line five yards away with your left foot.
3. Turn back to the right, sprint ten yards, and touch the far line with your right foot.
4. Turn back to the left, sprint five yards to the start line to finish.
5. During the recovery period dribble with the ball back and forth across the drill (three times) before leaving the ball at the opposite side and returning to the start. Never forget the ball – that is what this is all about.
Jamie put down his tracksuit and his bag as markers. As he bounced on the spot, he pulled the summer scents into his lungs. The grass had just been cut and it made the air smell fresh and clean. Jamie was ready to roll.
He took one final, deep breath. Then he rocketed forward towards his first marker with an electric burst of pace.
He imagined himself burning past a defender to get to the by-line and pull a cross back. He pumped his arms hard as he ran to find his extra, “turbo” gear.
He threw himself into it. Having missed out on training for the whole of the last week, today he wanted to go to the very limit of his body’s capabilities.
Even when he thought he had nothing else left to give, he kept pushing himself that little bit further. In the end, he did the drill eleven times.
The sweat streamed down his body as his legs galloped across the grass.
Jamie was taking a leap in a new direction.
Jamie practised the speed drills over and over again. To make it harder for himself, sometimes he changed things so he started facing the wrong way or lying down.
He used his stopwatch and noted down his time after every set. Each day, he made sure he didn’t leave Sunningdale until he’d recorded a new personal best. Although he really wanted to move on to the other drills, Jamie carried on doing the speed drills until he’d taken two and a half seconds off the time he’d started the week with.
But after ten days of solid speed work, Jamie wanted more. He wanted to take the next step.
According to the book, that was dribbling.
This is what Kenny’s book said:
Dribbling
With football’s increasing emphasis on strength and fitness, the ability to beat a player with skill is a priceless commodity.
If you have that ability, cherish it and nurture it because you may well be the difference between your team winning and losing a game.
When you are dribbling, remember to:
– Run straight at your opponent. Your positive, direct play will put you on the front foot and unnerve the defender.
– Try your tricks in the attacking third of the pitch. Beating your man on the halfway line is nice but not dangerous. Beating your man in the penalty area is lethal!
There was one trick that Jamie really wanted to perfect, because although it was simple, it could make even the best defender look like a fool. The book explained it brilliantly:
Beating your opponent on the outside
You don’t have to do step-overs and back-heels to beat a defender. Balance and change of direction, allied to pace, are your most dangerous weapons.
; One of the most effective ways to beat a defender is to run at them at full pace and, when they are just outside of tackling distance, to take a small touch to make it look as though you are going to go on the inside.
The defender moves to cover the inside channel but if the attacker then quickly knocks the ball back down the outside of the defender and, at the same time, injects a decisive change of pace, the defender is wrong-footed and helpless to stop the attacker.
This is how it looks in a one-on-one situation:
Inject extra pace for change of direction
It’s a good trick to have up your sleeve and the following drill is a good way to practise it.
Find a wall and lay your markers down near that wall in a bendy line, as shown. Have some of the markers close to each other and some a bit further away. To start the drill kick the ball to yourself off the wall. However the ball comes back to you – left or right, high or low – that is the start of your dribble. The fact that it’s unpredictable is good. That’s the way it will be in matches.
So control the ball with one touch as it comes to you off the wall and then dribble through your markers as quickly as you can, using both the inside and outside of your boot as you go. Dribble up and down the line of markers three times and then take a break. You can practise juggling the ball while you warm down and prepare for your next set.
If you can master the dribble, your defender will have a tough time stopping you in a game.
Jamie looked around. He was in the middle of the park. There were no walls that he could use. But there was an old hut by the side of the pitch. Jamie realized he could use the back of the hut as his wall. He immediately started working on the drill.
He practised dribbling through the markers over and over again. He wanted to become the best dribbler in the whole school. He visualized himself sprinting at Dillon and Dillon falling over as Jamie jinked past him.
After five days, Jamie started adding his own bits to the exercise. First he tried hitting the ball harder on to the wall of the hut at the start so that it would really test his control when it came to him. Then he began to force himself to look up at the markers in front of him when he was dribbling, rather than looking down at the ball at his feet. He wanted to feel the ball with his feet, not look for it with his eyes. He wanted his body to memorize these changes of direction so that they became an instinct for him. He didn’t want to have to think about it during a game. He just wanted to do it.
Jamie’s feet were learning a new way to play.
The days and the drills flew by. Jamie couldn’t believe it when the last day of the holidays came around. He’d spent every single day down at the park. He’d had a few texts and missed calls from Ollie and Tesh to see if he wanted to go down to the shopping centre but Jamie had never found the time. His mind was so completely filled with Kenny’s book and working on his game. When Ollie and Tesh saw him play next term, then they would realize what he’d been up to all holidays.
Jamie decided to do an extra long session to end the holidays with. It was his final chance to prepare himself before the start of term. He’d had a look at some of the free-kick exercises in the book and he wanted to finish with those. If he could start the season by bending a set-piece right into the top corner, Marsden would have to sit up and take notice.
Jamie was all set up and just about to start when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the First Eleven boys jogging towards him from the pitches on the other side of the park.
It was Danny Miller! He even looked like a professional player just in the way he jogged. It was hard to believe he was only sixteen.
But what did Danny want with him?
Jamie was nervous. He didn’t quite know how to position himself as Danny got nearer and nearer. In the end he just stood there with his foot on the ball and his hands on his hips.
“All right, mate,” said Danny, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. It was hot.
“All right,” Jamie replied.
“Listen, we’ve got a little game going on, but one of our players has just pulled his hammy. Do you fancy making up the numbers?”
“Seriously?” asked Jamie. He didn’t want them to get him over there just to laugh at him again like they had when they’d seen him commentating to himself the other week.
“Listen, if you don’t fancy it, mate. . .”
“No – it’s all right, I’m in. Let me just get my stuff together.”
Jamie was trying to act cool but underneath he was so excited. He was going to train with the Firsts!
He and Danny jogged towards the other pitch, exchanging passes on the way.
“You’re at Kingfield, aren’t you?” asked Danny.
“Yeah, I’m just about to go into Year Nine.”
“Yeah – I thought I recognized you. What position do you play? Oh, my name’s Danny by the way.”
As if Jamie didn’t know who he was!
“Everyone, this is Jamie,” said Danny, as they jogged on to the pitch. “He’s going to play with us today. He’s a left-winger.”
Jamie looked at the First Eleven as they each sized him up. He tried to force a smile but he was nervous about what they were all thinking about him.
“Hey, it’s Mini Miller!” said one of the bigger lads, who was on the team playing in skins. “Right, he’s ours then.”
The boy beckoned Jamie over to his team.
He seemed to be the captain of the team in skins and Danny the captain of the other. That meant Jamie was going to have to play against Danny Miller.
Jamie nodded and took off his top. His white, hairless, bony chest stood out among the muscle-bound six-packs around him. He hated playing in skins.
And then, without any more warning or Jamie even having a chance to introduce himself to his teammates, they started.
Jamie couldn’t believe what he was doing. He was actually training with the First Eleven! He was in awe of them. They were all about twice his size. And they all had stubble.
They were men and Jamie was a boy.
The pace was amazing. They were playing one-touch passes, making runs off the ball, clattering into tackles and shouting orders to each other. They seemed to know each other’s games inside out.
Jamie’s excitement quickly divided itself into fear and nerves. He knew that when the ball came to him, he wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it. The last thing he wanted to do was try something flashy and make a fool of himself again.
Not that Jamie’s team had much of the ball anyway. They had to get it off Danny first. While everyone else was rushing, tackling and sprinting, Danny seemed to be playing the game in cruise control. Although half of Jamie’s team were trying to tackle him, somehow he seemed able to brush them off and turn away from trouble without even trying.
No wonder a few of the professional clubs had tried to sign Danny already. He’d said that he wanted to finish school first though.
It seemed like ages before Jamie’s team got good possession of the ball. But as soon as they did, they spread it out to the wing, where Jamie was standing, waiting.
“Yes, Jamie! Lay it back,” one of the players on his team shouted at him. The ball was coming towards Jamie and they wanted a quick pass.
Jamie knew he should pass it first time, like they all were, but he wanted a touch first to make sure he had it under control.
He should have moved towards the ball too, but he waited for it to come to him. It was too late.
Jamie hadn’t even got control of the ball before a defender flew straight through the back of him. He took Jamie’s legs away completely, leaving him in a heap on the ground.
Now Jamie knew what it felt like to be taken out by a First Eleven player. It wasn’t a nice feeling.
“Hey, Quincy!” shouted one of the boys on Jamie’s side. “Go easy, mate, he’s only
a kid.”
As if to show there were no hard feelings, Quincy Oromuyi offered Jamie his hand to help him up. But as he did so, he said in a low voice, “Not so easy against real defenders, is it?”
Jamie let go of Quincy’s hand immediately. He realized now that Quincy was the one who’d been laughing the most that other week when they had seen him commentating on himself.
Jamie knew he had it in for him.
But what could he do? The guy was a giant, way stronger than him.
Quincy could foul him all he wanted and there was not a thing Jamie could do about it. It made him angry.
When play restarted, Danny continued to control the game. He was dribbling the ball around the players on Jamie’s team and, every time he beat a man, Quincy was clapping his hands, shouting “Olé!”
Jamie looked at Quincy and felt a river of frustrated energy start to rush through his veins.
A thought pushed its way into Jamie’s head: you might not be able to have a go at Quincy but you can go and win the ball. Now go and do it! He was shouting at himself inside his own brain.
Danny Miller still had the ball. He was on the edge of the box.
Pounding his legs on the turf, Jamie reached top speed straight away, catching up with Danny just as he was pulling his right foot back to unleash a shot.
Jamie launched himself forward and got in a crunching tackle, blocking the ball just as Danny made contact.
There was a loud bang as Jamie parried all the power that Danny had put into the intended shot.
The ball squirmed away, sorry to have been involved in such a hefty collision.