by PJ Davitt
Chapter Eight
Staring at my bedroom ceiling is becoming a nasty habit.
Five months or so ago the sleepless nights were worrying whether I had blown my big chance after picking a stupid fight with that waste of space Sheldon.
Now, lying here listening to the odd car drive by as the street lamp illuminates my Wolston posters on the walls, it feels like Mark Peacock is offering me the chance to live my dream.
I can almost reach out and touch it. Mum and Dad were waiting up when I finally got home from Stoke. Mum in the kitchen warming hot milk, Dad forcing me to go over and over the surreal conversation with Peacock.
Knowing Dad I bet he’d killed time thumbing through Rovers’ fixtures trying to work out when his boy’s debut might come. Didsbury, at Lowfield, in early April perhaps?
Oh, the bitter irony. No pressure then, Shawsy.
My first team bow can wait a bit longer. I still have the FA Youth Cup to focus on.
We draw Newcastle at St James’ Park in the next round. Wolston pay for the academy squad to fly up but we might as well have stayed on the tarmac. What a stadium to play football in, but we were woeful. All the confidence from beating Stoke seeps away when both Jimbo and Joe Louisburgh are forced to pull out through injury before flying north.
I get us back in the tie with a near post header but our depleted midfield is over-run after the break. 3-1 defeat, another cup failure.
Losing any match hurt but this defeat came with a silver lining; or should that be a Sky Blue one? Shaking hands with the Newcastle players it suddenly dawns on me maybe I am waving goodbye to the lads as well.
That’s what it feels like, one door closing, one chapter over. No different in many ways to when we clinched the under-16 title against Arsenal. Then it was the fear Wolston might not take me on. Now it is the fear of not being good enough to make the step up.
Okay, I can hear you doubters already. Dave, aren’t you jumping the gun here? Mark Peacock’s invite is to train with the first team. I’d been so far out of my depth at development level this experiment could go the same way. Then it would be one big, fat negative against Dave Shaw. One more cross in the box as a professional contract slips out of sight.
I’m asking myself the same questions. I just need to find out one way or the other.
The Lodge feels less welcoming as I pull through the gates on a cold, icy Monday morning in October, mist shrouding the training pitches. I know this plot of land so well, but not today. This is an alien environment. For starters I’m never at the training ground on Mondays. I should be heading to the local college right now, pretending to focus on coursework with the odd sneaky shell on my laptop running in the background looking at the latest hot sports cars or loft apartments to rent in Wolston.
I grab my wash bag and a couple of pairs of boots from the back seat of Mum’s car just as three motors sweep into Wolston’s rural training base.
‘Watko09’ claims the chequered flag. The growling engine stops mid-pitch, the booming baseline cuts out mid-lyric. Darren Watkins emerges from behind the tinted windows of an expensive Italian coupe looking every inch the cat walk model in a leather jacket and expensive trainers.
Wolston’s ex-England international is wearing dark shades. Maybe he expects hordes of autograph hunters. I resist the urge to dive back into the glove box for a pen and paper.
He’s joking with Justin Burt as I continue to observe from a safe distance in the car park. The first team boys all had allocated bays near the main building. I had parked in my usual spot near the office staff.
Burty is a year older than me. I played with him last season before he signed his first professional contract during the summer. I reckon the badge on Watkins’ coupe cost more than his entire car.
Ryan Hamer and Bobby Hassall emerge from a big, black 4x4. Former academy graduates just like Burty, only a few years older than either of us.
I idolise these lads, now I’m about to share a dressing room with them. No way. This is mad, this is off the dial, but it’s my new reality.
‘Well, well look who we have here boys. Drum roll please. Bringing an undefeated record into the ring…it’s the one and only Daveeee ‘Slugger’ Shaw.’
So much for a low key entrance.
Don Rogers is getting a rub down from one of Rovers’ backroom staff. The veteran defender acted as the peacemaker when I foolishly tried to grapple Sheldon on my development debut.
‘Morning Don,’ I feebly manage. I stop short of addressing him as Mr Rogers.
‘Morning Don,’ mimics Ryan Hamer. ‘Did you hear that lads? Such a polite, well-brought up young man. He must be a credit to his parents.’
Some of the lads start laughing at my expense. Bobby Hassall is almost having a fit sitting next to his big mate.
‘Shut it Hamer. Who asked your opinion?’
Perhaps Rogers didn’t enjoy being part of the collateral damage as the banter cranks up at the new lad’s expense. Not that I was having much fun either. I fully expected some sort of initiation given it’s usually me putting others in their place.
‘There’s only one David Shaw, one David Shaaaaw, there’s only one David Shaw.’ Hamer continues to mock me as he holds court. I focus on a speck of dust on the floor as one of my heroes dishes out the verbals. ‘So you are the boy wonder going to fire us back to the big time?’
Ignore the fake tan and the loud mouth, Hamer is the real deal; a tall, elegant defender with a wand of a left peg. The local press claimed last year Peacock had turned down a £2m offer from Aston Villa amid interest from Manchester City and Everton. He was a former England U21 international who had burst onto the scene at Rovers about four or five years ago when the club dropped out of the Premier League.
‘That’s right. I’ll score plenty of goals, just depends whether you lads can keep it tight at the back for a change.’
I can’t stay quiet any longer. Enough is enough. Attack is the best form of defence in my book.
Yoan Hagi and Jose Paredomo, sitting in the far corner, start roaring with laughter.
‘That told you Hames,’ taunts Rogers, as I finally look up from the floor to see the masseuse working the back of his hamstring. ‘…you’re only jealous because he might steal your limelight.
‘Picture the scene lads, rows and rows of unsold Hamer shirts in the club shop, less and less fan mail, shed loads of unfollows on social media. Press requests drying up. How does it feel to be past it at the ripe old age of 24?’
‘23, you geriatric,’ grins Hamer.
He can take it as well as give it, it seems. Now he’s walking towards me. Will this ever end?
‘What a cocky so-and-so,’ he laughs. ‘Well, son, I’m looking forward to seeing you back up those words.’
Hamer turns and heads back to Bobby Hassall. Hagi moves one space along to free up the peg next to him. I accept the offer as I throw down my wash bag and boots.
There is always a dressing room hierarchy. You learn that one fast at every level you play; lads who change at the same peg, use the same locker, sit next to the same players. Footballers are superstitious, whatever you hear differently.
‘He’s alright, really,’ shouts Rovers’ Algerian midfielder, as Hamer cranks up the volume on the music system that mercifully replaces my squirming as the changing room soundtrack, ‘…don’t worry. He just likes to think he’s the top man around here.’
The ‘top man’ was now busy squirting deep heat in Burty’s direction. It hadn’t taken me long to work out who the first team joker is; Paul Morley being our resident clown in the academy.
‘My name’s Yoan.’ I grasp his outstretched hand.
Now this was a touch bizarre, like Hagi had to introduce himself to me?
The Algerian is a cult figure among Rovers fans after being sent-off in a Didsbury derby once. I guess that was something we both had in common.
Hagi provided the muscle in midfield but Jose Paredomo is the craftsman
; the quality operator capable of creating chances for the likes of Radek and Watkins. They were inseparable on the pitch as well as the dressing room it appears.
Paredomo was one of the last survivors from the club’s Premier League days when Rovers could pay the wages and transfer fees to attract top overseas talent. I suppose he’d fulfilled his ambition of getting a move to England and his family were settled in the area now as well. He could play out his career until perhaps heading home to South America, but the Uruguayan international was way too good for the Championship.
‘Hola Jose.’ That was about the only Spanish I could muster from family holidays to Majorca.
‘Hola David.’
Paredomo looks at me with a hint of suspicion, still weighing up if I’m genuine or taking the piss. He doesn’t need to worry, I’d watched him lose it plenty of times on the pitch. He could kill you with a world class pass or just kill you if he felt he’d been wronged. Jose, like Hagi, suffered his fair share of red cards.
It dawns on me I’m sitting in the naughty corner.
Radek Raszi is tying up his boots the other side of Jose. Rovers’ Czech striker – or ‘Cash’ as I discover by the end of that first training session – has headphones on, oblivious to the young superstar in his midst.
Raszi’s upper body is ripped. It’s funny what you notice sitting a few feet away compared to our family perch in the West Stand. I knew he had the pace to deal with defenders from watching and studying him but clearly he also had the muscular frame to battle with the Sheldon’s of this world.
Looking at him struggling to stifle a yawn you would hardly think he’d hit a late winner to sink Nottingham Forest on Saturday at the City Ground to keep us just outside the play-offs.
This is possibly the greatest day of my life right here. For Cash and the rest it’s another training session, just the slog in between matches.
Stop staring Shawsy, time to switch on now. For the past 30 minutes or so it felt like I’d gatecrashed the hottest VIP party in town.
I pull on a sweatshirt with the initials DS.
See, you’re no different to anyone else here. They’ve only got two arms, two legs, one brain, one heart.
Mine is pumping furiously.
‘Hello son. You’re making me feel very old.’
I look up to see Darren Watkins standing over me. The guy is an absolute monster. I feel the need to get to my feet, like a pupil addressing the master. My eyes are barely in line with the bloke’s shoulders. What a beast.
There is an aura about him. Forget Hamer, Darren Watkins is the man. No question. Watkins had done everything there was to do in the game. He was a class act.
‘Now, first piece of advice,’ as he gently pokes a finger into my chest.
So much for keeping a sense of perspective, I suddenly feel light-headed.
‘Strikers have got to stick together. C’mon, I’ll introduce you properly.’
I work the room, with my high class escort, shaking hands with all the first team lads. At least all the ones fit for duty. Rovers’ captain, Ray McCready, is in a Nottingham hospital apparently after being carried off with concussion and there are two or three others doing rehab with the physios after long-term injuries.
‘Take everything with a pinch of salt,’ laughs Watkins after he concludes the grand tour, ‘…especially from those two. Half of what comes out of their months is bravado, the other half lies.’
Watkins points at Hamer and Hassall. Hamer is now telling anyone who cares to listen which German motor he plans to import. Hassall speaks when Hamer pauses for breath. I’d already discovered he’d spent his Saturday night playing online poker for big stakes.
Watkins may be a fan of the ‘bling’ lifestyle, like the younger lads, but there was none of the brashness. If anyone could brag it is him. He’d started in the lower leagues before Arsenal took a chance. Breaking his leg cut short a career at the very top but Wolston’s classy striker still played for decade or so in the Premier League, even making the fringes of an England World Cup squad once.
You know what, though, all the trappings of success and the stellar career are not the most impressive thing about this guy. You could see he still had the drug. Why else would he be putting his body through pain on a cold, miserable October morning? It certainly isn’t for the money Wolston can pay. I figured that much.
‘If you need anything, need any advice, don’t hesitate to ask.’
‘Cheers Darren.’
‘Dazzler, call me Dazzler.’
I almost float onto the training pitches. I hated wet, winter days when my ankle throbbed where the pins had been inserted during the surgery, but the adrenaline is pumping today.
Wolston’s first team manager calls me over at the start of the session.
‘You’re in this group on merit,’ says Peacock. ‘You don’t have to prove anything to me or Charlie. Just do what you’re good at, David. Do what got you here in the first place.’
The intensity is unreal. Peacock demands his lads train as they play games. It’s full tilt. The power, the technique, the pace of the work are all top notch.
Only my best is going to save me from embarrassing myself here in front of these first team boys.
Near the end of the session I manage to nutmeg Hamer in a small-sided exercise. I can’t resist it after his earlier taunts. I’m taking a gamble showing a senior pro disrespect, especially Hamer of all people. He’d pressed the same buttons as Sheldon earlier, putting the junior in his place, keeping me in that tiny box.
No way. I’m here to prove I belong in this company.
He doesn’t wait long to exact revenge when I go to close him down he leaves me sat on my backside with a cute feint before racing away to lash the ball into the roof of the net.
Hamer thrusts his arms into the air in celebration before belly-flopping to a chorus of boos from the other boys.
‘Remember gentlemen, the cream always rises to the top,’ he roars.
I join in the booing. This is now officially the best day of my life, or the best morning at least.
Duncan brings me crashing back to earth. No free afternoon on the golf course or relaxing at the spa; life as a wannabe Wolston first team player doesn’t stretch that far.
Try a one-to-one with Matt Kearns instead catching up on a morning of lost coursework while the rest of the academy trains.
All part of the Scot’s grand plan, no doubt, to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. One routine replacing another; working with the first team squad in the mornings then back to being a scholar in the afternoons, with academy league matches at weekends.
My 18th birthday comes and goes in November and still I’m no nearer the only present I want.
I even start to resent Mark Peacock. I know, I know, stupid really. Here I was, just turned 18, training full-time with the professionals; the only scholar at the club getting such an opportunity.
To me, that single fact should have suggested the professional contract was in the bag, or why else involve me with the first team squad?
Okay, so nothing had actually been signed. Not officially. No meetings, no quiet words with my parents that I was aware of, no sign of any Dave Shaw merchandise in the club shop.
But it’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, no, not to me. Not after the path my life had taken since injuring my ankle at 15.
The only upside is regular development outings. But that means being a team mate of Ray Slater’s again and I was seeing nothing to alter my first impressions. He is a parasite, a selfish individual who doesn’t give a toss about Wolston. In my eyes, Dad had about as much chance of playing in the first team. Or maybe his son, the way things were panning out.
I score a couple more goals but the buzz, when I think back to my big night at Lowfield Road, has long since gone.
It’s tough to shake the fear maybe I’m on the same slippery slope as Slater.
Each passing week fuels more frustration, more do
ubts. I’m in limbo. Not part of the first team squad, but not a fully paid-up member of the academy either. That’s until Charlie McGovern turns my world upside down again.
‘Shawsy, forget about the academy game tomorrow. You’re part of the first team squad for Leicester.’
Just like my development call-up earlier in the year. No big speeches, no formalities, merely a tap on the shoulder in the canteen at the Lodge.
Steve Kensall is struggling with a hamstring problem. Another first team striker on the fringes behind Watkins and Raszi, plucked from the lower leagues like Slater. From memory I think he’d only started one senior game in the club’s embarrassing League Cup defeat at Mansfield a couple of months ago.
Sitting in the home dressing room two hours before kick-off on that Saturday afternoon I feel every inch a Wolston first teamer in my smart grey club suit.
‘Dave, Kens has passed a fitness test. We don’t need you,’ says Mark Peacock, after coming back inside from watching his striker successfully come through a pre-match drill.
Peacock delivers it like a routine aside as he struggles to compete with the music. The boss is already deep in conversation with Dazzler in the far corner of the dressing room.
What about a consoling heart-to-heart, gaffer? No. Maybe just a comforting arm around the shoulder? No. Fair enough.
Friday lunchtime I’m targeting a 15th academy goal of the season. Now I’ve just been told I’m not involved with the first team squad. It’s a strange sensation. Relief tinged with numbness at the end of 24 hours that were a total blur.
Hagi and Paredomo wander in together. We exchange nods but nothing more. Peacock has a game to win, these lads a rot to stop with Rovers slipping back into mid-table.
A matchday dressing room when you’ve no match to play is the last place you want to be anywhere near.
I grab my kit bag, shake hands with a few of the boys and walk out.
The players’ lounge is deserted at this time of the afternoon as I sink into a comfy sofa and flip the lid on my phone. There’s a text from Jimbo. The lads have beaten Birmingham earlier and are planning to make it for kick-off.
‘Kensall fit. Left out. Gutted,’ I reply. No need to rush on my account, boys.
Dad had vacated his cherished West Stand season ticket for the occasion, but the sight of me shuffling along the row of reserved seats in the Main Stand is not the entrance either of us planned last night.
‘Kensall’s fit?’ enquired Dad. He would have clocked the striker going through his paces out on the pitch and feared the worst.
‘Yeah.’
‘Next time son, next time,’ as he gives me a consoling tap on the arm.
Leicester’s smash-and-grab caps a miserable afternoon. Rovers dominate in open play before the Foxes nick one from a corner.
Boos ring around the ground at full-time. I feel like joining in, except mine are directed at Peacock for a different reason.
A few hours later sitting in front of a television where I couldn’t tell you what programme is on I’m still furious. I can’t shake the feeling I’ve been the subject of a sick joke. A prank.
Here. Have a glimpse of what you could have won. Now take it away again. You didn’t really think we were serious? Oh that’s priceless, you actually did.
Yes, I’m being selfish. In a more rational moment I’d agree, but that bloody-mindedness had taken me this far. It is part of my character; at times a strength as much as a flaw.
Rovers draw against sides in the bottom six over the next fortnight. The early season play-off push now in reverse. Kensall even starts one game ahead of Watkins as Mark Peacock searches for the right answers ahead of the key Christmas period.
Jimbo and the academy boys get a few days off. I get to train. Great.
Believe me the novelty had well and truly worn off by the time I arrive at The Lodge on Christmas Day morning.
Let’s just say I’m lacking in festive cheer and leave it at that.
Hames appears with a bag of Santa hats. Like that is going to lift the mood. It had become a constant battle not to let my negativity affect how I trained, but ask any footballer and they will tell you the same. You work hard during the week to play, not sit in the stands or on the bench or even back in the academy league.
I’d out-grown that standard of football. Arrogant I know but that’s just between you and me. If Duncan could hear me he’d go up the wall. I bet he doesn’t share the same opinion.
McGovern directs us towards one of the sport science guys for the warm up.
‘David, a word, lad.’
I’m lagging behind at the back of the group as Peacock motions me over.
‘Maybe he didn’t like the present you got him, Shawsy,’ whispers Hamer.
‘Why, what did you get him Hames? An autographed picture of yourself?’
If nothing else the previous two months had toughened me up. I could now hold my own in the banter stakes without batting an eyelid.
‘Has Santa been kind?’
‘Don’t know gaffer. I haven’t opened my presents yet.’
With a bit of luck there’s a voodoo doll of you.
‘This must be a new experience? Training on Christmas Day?’
It was. Just like a proper professional in all but one minor, important detail.
‘Well lay off your Mum’s Christmas pudding this afternoon. I’m putting you in the squad tomorrow.’
Peacock’s offer catches me off-guard. I’d been convinced this was going to be another chat to sort out my attitude. We’d had our fair share as the wide-eyed enthusiasm started to wane.
‘Serious gaffer?’
‘Serious. I think you’re ready. Don’t you?’
Hell yes.
In my self-centred world I should have been leading Wolston’s frontline. Let Raszi and Watkins fight it out to partner me.
‘Now get back over there with the rest of the lads. And one final thing, you better not let me down. The way results are going I might need you to keep me in a job.’
Peacock is only half-joking. Wolston’s manager had copped some serious flak in the local press and from supporters. Not that I really paid too much attention now, apart from what my old man told me. That was one thing you learn from the pros. Avoid the media when things are going badly.
I give Peacock a thumbs up. Maybe this is a good time to talk professional contracts, goal bonuses, commercial spin offs.
Don’t get me wrong here. You’ve heard me say it in the past. It is all about the football and living my dream, but I also want the trappings as well.
No. Hang fire, Shawsy. Leave the contract talks until you score the winner against Ipswich tomorrow. Yeah, that’ll put a few zeros on the first wage packet.
I re-join the rest of the lads at the front of the pack; the adrenaline already starting to flow.
The following morning an overnight frost had settled as I pull back the curtains. The sun is trying to poke through but Lowfield Road’s undersoil heating means the game is not in any danger of being postponed. Nothing is going to stop me today.
A Boxing Day home match. Poor recent run or not there’d be well over 20,000 crammed inside.
I heeded the gaffer’s advice yesterday. Mum couldn’t believe it when I passed on a second helping of trifle. Now holding down my supplement shake over breakfast is proving a major effort.
It’s not nerves. It is too early for that, just a bubbling sense of anticipation. This is it. The day I’ve been waiting for – the day the previous two months had been leading up to. The day my whole life had been leading up to.
Maybe the fear of the unknown had dissolved with each first team training session; that sick feeling which completely gripped me on my development debut.
Maybe Peacock realised as much. He was a firm believer in youth but knew he couldn’t expose one of his brightest talents too early. Just nurture him little by little.
Who am I kidding? When I walk out onto the pitch for the p
re-match warm-up it hits me. Should I be here? Why is he putting an 18-year-old in front of 20,000 people? The man must have a screw loose. The doubt and terror are coursing through my veins, mixed with pure excitement.
Shaw in, Kensall out. It didn’t look good for the back-up striker to lose his place in the Wolston squad to a raw teenager.
I pause during my stretches to scan the Main Stand for the family. This early before kick-off Dad would normally be in the bar, or at the betting booth. Today is different. Today David Shaw is a new name for the punters to place their bets on.
I spot him in the plush seats and get a wave in return. This is about him as it is me. What a journey. All the way from that first game he’d taken me to against Liverpool. Ever since Peacock’s news I’d struggled to shake the grainy images.
Weaving between the crowds, squeezing through the turnstile, climbing those steep steps that seemed to go on for ever to the West Stand. Then that shaft of brilliant sunshine when we reached the top and the first sight of the pitch. The lushness of it, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Now here I am standing on it; gazing up at the stands feeling the same buzz as I did as a five-year-old.
Just one, tiny problem if I want the fairytale ending. I’m starting on the bench.
Cash and Justin are in the team to support Dazzler in a three-pronged attack.
It is a brave call but Peacock needs to spark our season back into life. Yoan Hagi is the insurance policy in midfield alongside Mark Pounchett, with Jose Paredomo conducting the orchestra.
Doubts rush into my brain again as the strains of the ‘Sky Blue’ song, Wolston’s anthem, roll around the packed ground. My legs feel stiff as I squeeze into the home dugout before the players and officials emerge. Like gladiators entering the coliseum.
The pace of the game is my biggest fear now. No time on the ball, split-second reactions, hesitate and you end up looking stupid.
Ipswich is a decent mid-table side, nothing more. If we are serious about promotion this season they have to be beaten.
Cash gets the place rocking when he swerves around the keeper to collect Jose’s pass and slot from an acute angle inside the opening ten minutes.
You can almost taste the surge of electricity from the crowd. It is intense. I’d heard managers and coaches talk about supporters lifting players. In the midst of this madness I’m a believer, watching 20,000 punters form one, giant, heaving mass. The rush, the buzz, even the laid back Raszi must be feeling this. Time for a stretch with the rest of Wolston’s substitutes as the noise dies a decibel or two. I sprint along the touchline trying to shake off the tension and get the blood circulating.
Paredomo is on it today. Dazzler heads over from close range then forces the keeper into an acrobatic save.
Hagi’s block tackle sees the ball squirt towards Jose who looks up and controls in one instant before curling another pass over Town’s centre-half.
Raszi shrugs off his marker, it’s like the Uruguayan and the Czech is on the same radio frequency. Cash steadies himself, draws the keeper and rolls the ball into the bottom corner from 16 yards.
Rovers’ top gun raises both fists towards the fans like a headline speaker at a political rally before racing towards the corner flag to take the acclaim from his adoring public.
He’s coming towards me. I jump on his back like a pitch invader from the stands. The stretches can wait. Right now I’m a supporter, not a team mate and I have the best view in the house. My heart feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest. I turn and punch the air in front of the lower Main Stand as if I had just scored myself.
We’re in total control. But at 2-0 the game is never over. Peacock is lucky. He has so much experience on the park with the likes of Watkins and our captain Ray McCready. They’d been in this situation hundreds of times.
Ipswich is dominating possession as the game progresses but it’s all in front of our defence, no penetrative balls turning the lads or causing problems for our keeper. Peacock and Charlie McGovern take it in turns to bawl instructions from the front of the technical area. Cash drops deeper into a midfield five as time ebbs away, leaving Dazzler up top on his own. Ambition gives way to containment and what we have we hold.
I’m spending as much time focusing on the gaffer as the action on the pitch. His body language is a dead give away. This is just how he planned it with his analysts at The Lodge. What a sweet feeling to release some of the pressure swirling around him.
I lean forward in the dugout to check the electronic scoreboard in the corner of the West and Sky Blue Stands. 80 minutes gone, job almost done, and with it my chance of getting on. 2-0 up there is no need for a fresh striker.
Can I still claim this as a winning debut? You bet. This will be a day to look back on in years to come when I show family and friends into my large trophy room and point at the spotless framed shirt hanging up on the wall.
‘David, David.’
Peacock has his hands cupped around his mouth trying to make himself heard over the crowd.
I edge past a couple of the other subs on the bench and jog towards Wolston’s boss. He pulls me in even closer.
‘Time to get Dazzler off. Save those old legs. Just tuck in on the right and keep the shape. We’ll push Cash further forward again.’
No, no, gaffer you’re alright.
I’m enjoying watching from the sidelines. I feel part of the whole circus without being thrust onto the stage.
Just let me go back to day-dreaming about the big trophy room in my mansion.
Okay, I’ll hold my hands up here. Stage fright is kicking in. Tell me you haven’t experienced that yourself at some point? There you go. See what I mean. Standing on the touchline in this seething bear pit I suddenly feel exposed. Fear had me in a vice-like grip.
Maybe another day, eh, why take the risk? I’ve had a taste of it now gaffer. Thanks very much.
Cold feet? It is bordering on frostbite.
Peacock clips me around the back of the head. This guy is good. He can sense my nerves. Probably see the terror in my eyes.
My mind is racing. Dad, Mum, Boppper, Duncan, Jimbo and the rest. I wouldn’t say my life flashes before me but if you could bottle the excitement as Watkins ambles towards me you’d be sitting on a fortune.
Dazzler salutes the home crowd as he leaves to a standing ovation from all bar the Ipswich fans. His trot turns into a walk as he tries to shave a few extra seconds off the clock.
‘One touch, two touch stuff, Shawsy, just enjoy it,’ he smiles.
‘…and making his Wolston Rovers senior debut is number 14, David Shaw.’
The noise levels rise again as I bolt over to the far side of the pitch.
Block it out, man. Just do your job. I look down at the club crest on my left breast and give it a rub for good luck. This is really happening. It is happening to me.
Hames shouts something as Town’s goalkeeper prepares to launch a goal kick. He’s got no chance in this din but I understand the hand signals as he motions with both fingers to his temple. Concentrate. Focus.
I’d like to say my first touch in professional football settles me down. It doesn’t. Hagi knocks the ball square on halfway, it strikes my shin and bobbles out of play. No time to dwell on it.
I drop back into position to screen Ipswich’s wide player just in front of Bobby Hassall.
Hagi snaps in to win possession and get us going again on the front foot. I look over to the Main Stand where the fourth official is holding up the board for added on time.
Two minutes. My first team cameo is a total blur.
Hamer chests a long punt forward and brings the ball out like he is playing in the park. The guy is a total clown but on a football pitch he is pure class. Paredomo comes short, spins and with time to get his head up picks me out like an American quarterback connecting with his wide receiver.
Just control it, Shawsy. Don’t make a hash of it this time. If it was The Lodge on a
Saturday morning I’d already be three moves ahead of the game, but all my concentration goes into trapping the ball. It travels a good 30 yards but I don’t even have to break stride.
Success. My first touch is better this time. Well it couldn’t be any worse.
I look up and see Raszi on the shoulder of his marker, pointing to the far post. Ipswich’s left-back is on the half-turn, showing me down the line. This guy wouldn’t have a clue who I am. Probably thinks I am some jinky winger, all tricks and body swerves, comfortable down the flanks when the penalty box is my area of expertise. I feint to go on the outside then cut in on my left.
Now I’ve got that pocket of space. That’s all I need. One more glance up to get my bearings.
This is The Lodge on a Saturday morning. This is academy football. I know exactly what I’m doing. Remember what Bopper always says, ‘those posts never move.’
Raszi is already in mid-air before the Ipswich keeper decides he has to come for my cross. Too late. The Czech’s glancing header is past him as it clips the inside of the far post before nestling over the goal line.
Brace yourself. If I knew what an out-of-body experience feels like then I guess this isn’t too far away.
It is like 18 birthdays and Christmas Days rolled into one, extreme high. All the goals I ever scored from the playground, to the school pitches, to Wolston’s academy.
I race behind the net high-fiving Rovers’ supporters hanging over the front of the West Terrace. Everything is in slow motion, a sea of contorted, deliriously happy faces.
Raszi drops to his knees just the other side of the goal. I’m the first there - this is becoming a habit. I kiss him on the forehead, but I feel someone grab my neck. I turn to see this grey-haired guy wearing a long, knitted scarf trying to wrap me in it but the referee steers us back towards the pitch as Hames and the rest join the party.
Stewards struggle to halt a mini pitch invasion. The stadium is one vibrant, rocking mass of ecstasy.
I break off from the team huddle, turn and raise my arms in acclaim towards the packed West Stand.
This is my stage now. I belong here. Dave Shaw has arrived.
About the Author
Paddy Davitt is an award-winning chief soccer correspondent with more than 11 years experience of the game built up from working closely with managers, players and owners in the Premier League and the Championship. He has also covered professional football in the USA, Italy, Austria and France.
His childhood passion for writing was sparked by reading the fictional football stories of authors such as Brian Glanville and Michael Hardcastle.
Paddy grew up in the Midlands, England, and is a lifelong Coventry City fan. He currently works as a chief football correspondent for the regional publishing group Archant, where he covers Norwich City FC.
‘One Shot at Glory’ is the first in a series of novels featuring a young footballer’s quest to follow his boyhood dream and make it big at his hometown club.
You can find out more information and join my mailing list on my official web site pjdavittbooks.com or my twitter account @paddyjdavitt
Thanks so much for your support and taking the time to read my first novel. If you enjoyed it, can I respectfully ask for a few more minutes of your time to leave a review on which ever site you downloaded the book. Thanks again.
Paddy Davitt is currently working on part two in the Dave Shaw series