The Team
Megan “Meggo” Fawcett GOAL
Petra “Wardy” Ward DEFENCE
Lucy “Goose” Skidmore DEFENCE
Dylan “Dyl” or “Psycho 1” McNeil LEFT WING
Holly “Hols” or “Wonder” Woolcock DEFENCE
Veronika “Nika” Kozak MIDFIELD
Jenny-Jane “JJ” or “Hoggy” Bayliss MIDFIELD
Gemma “Hursty” or “Mod” Hurst MIDFIELD
Eve “Akka” Akboh STRIKER
Tabinda “Tabby” or “Tabs” Shah STRIKER/MIDFIELD
Daisy “Dayz” or “Psycho 2” McNeil RIGHT WING
Amy “Minto” or “Lil Posh” Minter VARIOUS
Official name: Parrs Under 11s, also known as the Parsnips
Ground: Lornton FC, Low Road, Lornton
Capacity: 500
Affiliated to: the Nettie Honeyball Women’s League junior division
Sponsors: Sweet Peas Garden Centre, Mowborough
Club colours: red and white; red shirts with white sleeves, white shorts, red socks with white trim
Coach: Hannah Preston
Assistant coach: Katie Regan
Star Player
Age: 9
Birthday: 2 February
School: Mowborough Primary
Position in team: goalkeeper (yay!)
Likes: football, hot chocolate with marshmallows, football, The Simpsons, football
Dislikes: Miss Parkinson (my form teacher) and people who are mean about other people
Supports: England and England Women and the Parrs
Favourite player(s) on team: Petra Ward (she’s also my best friend), but for pure legendary skill, Gemma Hurst
Best football moment: when Hannah Preston (best coach ever) took a penalty against me and I saved it. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a goalkeeper.
Match preparation: I get really bad pre-match nerves so I do deep-breathing exercises
Have you got a lucky mascot or a ritual you have to do before or after a match? I wear my lucky red bandana
What do you do in your spare time? I watch football on TV with my dad. Hang out with Petra and a few others
Favourite book(s): Michael Owen’s Soccer Skills by Michael Owen
Favourite band(s): Sugarbabes
Favourite film(s): all the Shrek films
Favourite TV programme(s): The Simpsons and Match of the Day
Pre-match Interview
Hello. My name is Megan Fawcett and I’m the goalie for the Parrs Under 11s, the best football team in the world. Don’t worry if you have never heard of us; I won’t be offended. Perhaps you’ve never heard of Donny Belles or Dick, Kerr’s Ladies either? Nothing would surprise me.
Anyway, I am going to kick off the series by explaining how the team got together in the first place. I hope you’ll enjoy the story, even if you’re a bit weird and don’t like football.
Love and penalty saves,
Megan F xxx
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
1
It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was sitting in the bottom cloakroom with Tabinda, getting ready for football practice. I was feeling nervous. I always feel nervous before football practice but today I was more nervous than usual; my hands were trembling.
I don’t think Tabinda had noticed. She was busy stuffing her shin pads down her socks, her long dark plaits almost touching the floor as she concentrated. I had already shoved my shin pads down my socks. Now all I had to do was make sure my tiara didn’t fall off. “Is this on straight?” I asked.
She nodded, then did a double take and scowled. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting ready for football practice. What are you doing?” I replied.
She frowned at me and didn’t say anything for about ten seconds. “OK, Megan, I give in. Why are you wearing fairy wings and a tiara?”
I tugged at the elastic holding my wings together and shrugged. “To see if Mr Glasshouse even notices.”
Tabinda understood immediately. “Nice one.”
“I thought so.”
“Ready, then?”
“Ready.”
Together we left the cloakroom and trudged out onto the school field to join the others in the squad, our boots making a click-clicking sound on the floor.
An hour later we left the school field and trudged back into the cloakroom, our boots making a click-clicking sound on the floor. I pulled off the wings and threw the tiara into the bottom of my kit bag and looked at Tabinda.
Tabinda looked at me. “Well, you tried,” she said.
“I did,” I agreed.
2
The next day I returned the wings and tiara to my best friend, Petra. “Sorry, one of the wings got a bit bent. Reece Gilbert cropped me and I went flying.”
Petra laughed and hung the wings off the back of her chair. “Went flying! Good one.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. I hadn’t even realized I’d made a joke. That shows how fed up I was.
“Did it work? Did Mr Glasshouse notice you?” Petra asked.
I shook my head.
She looked at me, her head crooked to one side, the way she does when she’s being sympathetic. “Don’t give up, Megan. I bet he did notice but just didn’t say anything so the others wouldn’t get jealous. Bet you anything you’ll be on the team this time. Or on the bench at least.”
“I won’t be,” I said. “It’s a cup match. He won’t risk it.”
“Wait until you’ve seen the noticeboard at break. You never know.”
So I went to the noticeboard at break. The team list was up. Mr Glasshouse had even used clip-art of a couple of trophies to decorate it.
The list went like this:
Just so you know, I’m in Year Three. So’s Tabinda. ’Nuff said.
Petra linked her arm through mine and steered me away from the noticeboard. “My dad’s got a sumo outfit from this party he went to at Christmas if you want to try that next time.”
“I’ll pass,” I said, “but thanks.”
3
Mum was not that sympathetic when I told her I hadn’t made the team. “Well, just keep trying,” she said, spooning our cat Whiskas his Whiskas into the cat bowl.
“But I’d just like to know what it feels like to run out onto the pitch against another team. Even for, like, ten minutes or something.”
“Yes, well, at least you can run…” Mum began.
Here we go, I thought. My mum’s a nurse. Having a mum as a nurse is good for things like if you cut yourself or break something or you wake up covered in yellow crusty blobs. It’s not good if you feel sorry for yourself because you haven’t made the footy team. “There was a little girl in a wheelchair in A and E this morning,” Mum said. “She couldn’t have been older than five. Sweet little thing, but she’ll never be able to walk… She was born with …” Mum came out with this complicated word ending in “itis”.
“You can still play football if you’re in a wheelchair!” I pointed out. “In a gym, not on grass, obviously, but you can still play. I’ve seen it on telly.”
Mum gave me a bit of a look.
“I’ll go and do my homework,” I said.
Dad was more understanding. He played football for his school, right up to Year Eleven, and he still has a kick-about with the lads down
at the station where he’s a fire officer. “That’s a shame,” he said when I told him.
“I know.”
“Chin up, petal, eh? He’s bound to notice the Fawcett flair at some stage.”
So I kept my chin up. I attended football practice every Wednesday. I wore sensible clothing. I tried as hard as I could during the drills. I dribbled. I volleyed. I controlled the ball (most times). I went anywhere I was told during the short matches at the end. I ran and fetched the ball if it went miles out of play – unlike some Year Sixes I could mention. I kept my chin up and my head down.
I might have continued like that right through Year Four, Year Five and into Year Six if it hadn’t been for Faye Pratt dropping a brick on her foot.
4
It was half-six in the morning when Dad woke me that fateful Sunday. “Now then, Fishface,” he said, “rise and shine.”
I squinted at him with one eye. “What? How come?”
“Mum’s just phoned; Faye Pratt can’t come in to do her shift.” Faye Pratt is one of the nurses on Mum’s ward.
“Why?”
“She dropped a brick on her foot making a rabbit hutch. Apparently, it looks like a watermelon with a sock on – the foot, not the rabbit hutch. Anyway, Mum’s having to stay on until they find a relief nurse, and I’m due down at the station for half-seven, so I’ve got to take you to Auntie Mandy’s.”
Auntie Mandy is my emergency babysitter. She is the manager of the clubhouse at Lornton FC, a football club about five miles away. I love going to Auntie Mandy’s! There’s always so much happening. I sprang out from under my duvet, took a quick shower, put on my jeans and England shirt and dashed downstairs. “Ready when you are, sonny boy,” I said to my dad five minutes later.
He glanced at his watch. “Mm. That might just be a record.”
Like Batman and Robin we leapt into our Volvo and set off. I’d hardly settled into my seat when my mobile vibrated. “That’ll be your mum,” Dad predicted – but it wasn’t Mum’s, it was Petra’s picture flashing on the screen. Petra is an early riser, but before eight o’clock on a Sunday is going some, even for her. “Are you OK?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d answer. I was going to leave a message.”
“I’m on my way to my auntie Mandy’s.”
“Oh.”
Now when you’ve known someone since nursery, you can tell a lot from a simple “oh”. Petra’s “oh” was not a happy “oh”. “Spill,” I said.
She sighed. “Oh, nothing.”
“Spill.”
She sighed again. “It’s just I’ve got to go with Mum and Charlotte to some stupid horse thing miles away. I’ve been waiting in the back of the car for about four years for them to load Betty Boo into the horsebox and sort out the tack. I’m well fed up. I wish I could hang out with you instead.”
Now this was just plain spooky. We’d be going by the top of Petra’s lane in less than half a mile. “So you fancy spending the day with me instead?” I asked.
“Well, dur!”
“Can you be standing outside your gate in one second?”
“Seriously?”
“So seriously.”
My phone line went dead.
We picked Petra up, waved to her mum and Charlotte, then set off again. I sent Auntie Mandy a text to tell her about Petra coming and by the time she’d replied saying “No probs” we were already outside the clubhouse waiting for her to open the door.
She answered almost at once, still in her dressing gown, her brown curly hair all over the place. Curly hair runs on that side of the family, only mine and Mum’s curls are red. I think Auntie Mandy’s should be red, too, but she cheats. “Good morning, Trouble,” she said to me and gave me a hug. “And hello to Petra,” she said – and gave her a hug too!
I kissed Dad goodbye, then followed Auntie Mandy upstairs, carefully avoiding the empty bottle crates stacked in the entrance-cum-cloakroom and trying not to breathe in the smell of stale beer from the bar. The clubhouse isn’t exactly posh. Outside it’s a plain brick building, with ball-bashed wire meshing over the downstairs windows and two entrances, one at either end – one for the club and one for the changing rooms.
Inside is better, though, and Auntie Mandy’s upstairs flat is small but cosy. We sat for a while in the sunny kitchen eating bacon butties and drinking tea.
“How’s school?” Auntie Mandy asked. “Any joy with the football team?”
“Please don’t set her off,” Petra begged. “She’ll moan for hours.”
“I will not!” I protested, then began moaning.
“Told you!” Petra grinned, licking tomato ketchup from her fingers.
“Poor Megan! Why don’t you go and get a ball from the storeroom and have a kick-around while the place is deserted,” Auntie Mandy said.
I didn’t need telling twice. I was downstairs and in that storeroom faster than you can say Wayne Rooney rocks.
5
“That’s a lot of space,” Petra commented as we approached the pitch.
I knew what she meant. A proper football pitch does feel massive when there’re only two of you. We stayed by the goalmouth nearest the main path, passing the ball backwards and forwards between us along the white line marking out the six-yard box. Despite the sunshine, the day hadn’t warmed up yet and there was a cool breeze ruffling our shirts. “Lordy Wardy! Put some effort in; I’m freezing!”
“Hold your corset, Fawcett!” Petra replied, taking a swipe at the ball, which she totally mis-kicked and sent flying miles behind me.
“Who was that to? A Martian?”
“You wanted to get moving!” she called as I chased after the ball bobbling towards the dead-ball line. I trapped it with my foot, then dribbled back.
“You’re so good!” Petra sighed.
I shrugged. “Yeah, well, so would you be if you joined in at lunchtimes.”
“Huh! Tell that to my mum.”
Poor Petra. Mrs Ward does like to keep her busy, what with clarinet lessons and choir and maths club and other complete wastes of time. “Come on, let’s do something else. Shall we go in goal? You shoot and I save, then swap round?”
Petra glanced towards the goalmouth. “I can’t dive or anything; I’ve got my new jeans on – Mum’ll kill me if I tear them.”
“I don’t mind going in goal all the time.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
I’d never had a go in goal before – it was the one position that never seemed to fall my way during practices. As I walked towards the goal line, I realized for the first time how high and wide apart the posts were; I didn’t even come halfway up, and the distance from one end to the other was about the same size as my bedroom! I patted the cold white wood. “Kind little post,” I told it, “help Megan keep a clean sheet!”
I strode over to the middle of the goal and stood where the goal line should be, but because it was nearing the end of the season, it was just a bare patch of hard, dry mud. Planting my legs firmly where I guessed the line ought to run, I crouched forward, my arms outstretched like I’d seen our school goalie do. “Bring it on!” I called out to Petra, who was placing the ball on the penalty spot.
“Goal number one coming up!” she said, and charged.
I felt a tingle dart through me. My eyes never left the ball and my heart was thudding fast. The air around me seemed to crackle. I guessed, from the way Petra kicked it, that the ball would come straight at me and it would come high. I guessed right. I sprang to meet it, leaping up and pushing it away from me easily.
“Oh! Good save!” Petra complimented.
“No, it was rubbish,” I said, chasing after the ball and throwing it back to her. “Go again.”
“Why was that rubbish?” she asked. “You saved it!”
“Because I should have kept hold of it. Any waiting striker would have put that straight into the back of the net if it had been a real game.”
“So
? It’s not a real game!” Petra called out.
“I know but… Just go again,” I said. “Try to kick harder. And keep it low – that makes it more difficult for me.” I’d watched enough games on TV with Dad to know that!
She did. She struck the ball harder and cleaner this time and I just managed to stick a leg in the way to deflect it.
“Nice one!” I said, returning the ball again.
“I’m just warming up!” she said. “I could score every time but I don’t want to show you up.”
“In your dreams!”
Unfortunately most of Petra’s shots were rubbish – either she hoofed them too far upwards and they landed miles away, or she tried too hard and they flew in the opposite direction. Sometimes she missed altogether, then slapped her forehead and said “D’oh!” like Homer Simpson.
Still, Petra never gives up, and the longer we played, the more determined she became, and she began planting a few past me. “Easy! Easy!” she chanted as she notched up number four.
6
“You can always come off your line,” a voice behind me said.
I turned to see a lady looking at us. When I say lady I mean she was older than a teenager but miles younger than my mum. Maybe, like, twenty-one or twenty-two?
The lady was wearing a navy blue tracksuit and running on the spot. Her long light-brown hair was tied back with a red bandana patterned with skulls.
“We’re just practising,” I said, in case she thought we were messing about. She was kind of official looking.
“So I see.”
“I’m useless,” Petra said.
“No, you’re not. You just need to change a few things. Look, I’ll show you.” The lady came onto the pitch and held her hand out for the ball. “Watch.”
She placed the ball on the ground and showed Petra, in slow motion, how to shoot using the front of her foot, not the toe the way Petra kept doing. The ball came straight to me, but not so hard I couldn’t catch it.
Do Goalkeepers Wear Tiaras? Page 1