“Really?”
“Really. A training only basis, mind.”
“Oh,” I said, my face dropping.
“What’s the matter?” Katie asked.
“Well… No offence, but some of the girls I’m thinking of – the skilled ones – go to training already. They probably won’t come if they don’t get to play real matches; not for half an hour. I mean, I’ll come, definitely, but they might not…” I trailed off. I felt awful now for sounding ungrateful, but it was the truth.
Hannah nodded. “I can see where you’re coming from, Megan, but getting a real team up and running is a lot of hard work. You have to register and get sponsors…”
“Not to mention money for the kit and everything,” Katie added.
“Oh,” I said.
“We’ve made her all sad again now!” Katie laughed.
Hannah glanced down at me. “Tell you what: if the girls who come have the right attitude and show real potential, we’ll look into forming a proper league team. I’m not saying Katie and I will run it or anything, but we’ll look into it and do all we can to help. And we’ll start at six so you get a full hour. How does that sound?”
“It sounds…” I gulped and looked at both the Parrs players, hoping they wouldn’t notice my eyes filling with tears. “It sounds awesome!”
Auntie Mandy clapped her hands together in delight. “Oh, how wonderful!”
12
The next morning I took my England notepad and pencil with me to school and set about recruiting straight away. I began on Nightingale table during Literacy Hour. “Petra, I know you’re not that bothered about football but you are my best friend, so if you’d like to come…”
Instead of answering she stared at my hand. “What happened? Has Whiskas been scratching you?”
My knuckles were still red and sore from where Jenny-Jane had crunched them. “Yes,” I said, thinking that blaming my poor cat was better than explaining about Jenny-Jane. “Now … about this football training with that lady you met. In or out?”
“In, of course!” she said. “Especially Tuesdays. Charlotte has a riding lesson and telly’s rubbish.”
“Excellento!”
The other three on my table were boys, so I couldn’t ask them. I glanced round to check where Miss Parkinson, my crabby form teacher, was, thinking I might risk a trip across to Einstein table, when Yuri Kozak, who sat opposite me, leaned forward. “Put name on list,” he said.
“It’s just for girls!” I whispered. Yuri is from the Ukraine. He’s only been at Mowborough for a few weeks and his English isn’t so good yet. I pulled my hair to show what I meant. “Girls!” I repeated.
“I know! Put sister down. In next class. She is good football. Play in old school!”
“Oh!” I said. “Cool! What’s her name?”
“Nika.”
“Is that you talking, Megan Fawcett?” Miss Parkinson asked. She must have bat’s ears. She’s certainly got a bat’s face.
At lunchtime, Petra had clarinet so I searched round for Tabinda, who agreed instantly to come on the team. “Girls only! Neat!”
I asked her to help me recruit more players. Obviously we started on the playing field. Our playing field is divided into two: the wood end (two trees and a bench), where the little ones go, and the car-park end, where the older ones go. “Right, you do Wood End and I’ll do this end. Meet you back here in ten minutes.”
“Right-oh.”
I watched as Tabinda ran to the far side of the field, then I took a deep breath and looked around. I spotted two of the Year Six girls who were on the school team but, to be honest, they looked a bit scary. I don’t know what Year Sixes eat but it makes them taller than boys and laugh too loud. Then I had a brain wave. Don’t ask the ones already on the team, my brain said, in waves; ask the ones who are like you. The ones trying to get on the team. They’ll be more up for it! I am such a genius sometimes.
Switching direction, I strode over to the painted tractor tyre where the Year Fours hang out. Year Four girls are much less frightening than Year Sixes.
Nika, Yuri’s sister, was there, sandwiched between Eve Akboh and Lucy Skidmore. How convenient! I already knew Eve a little because her mum is a nurse at Mowborough General, like mine. Better still, Eve and Lucy both go to Mr Glasshouse’s football practice too!
“A girls’ football team?” Lucy asked. “Sounds good. What time’s practice?”
“Six o’clock on Tuesdays.”
“Can we be in both footy teams?” Eve asked.
“Course.”
They shrugged. “Let’s go for it!”
“Will you explain all this to Nika? Her brother told me she used to play at her old school.”
“Did she? We never knew that!” Lucy said.
They set about miming football shapes and kicking while I wrote their names down on my England pad. Nika seemed eager and spelled out her last name – Kozak – for me to add to my list.
“OK. I’ll be in touch when I have more details,” I said.
“Hey, Megan,” Eve called as I turned away.
“Yes?”
“There are two girls at the after-school club who might be interested. Amy Minter and Gemma Hurst. They don’t go to this school, though.”
“That’s not a problem,” I said quickly.
“I’ll check with them tonight.”
“Wicked,” I said, scribbling down the extra names. This was turning out better than I’d expected.
Tabinda only had two names: Daisy and Dylan McNeil.
“What?” I asked. “Please tell me you’re kidding!”
“Look, Megan, I know they are only in Year Two and a little bit psycho …”
“A little?”
“… but they are keen. And fast. They can outrun Mr Glasshouse and all the lunchtime supervisors; I’ve seen them.”
I thought for a moment. At school the team was seven-a-side, but the Parrs played eleven-a-side so maybe the Parsnips would, too. Even if they didn’t we’d need enough players to have games against each other. Ten or twelve at least. “OK,” I said, adding the twins to my list. “Thanks, Tabinda.”
She squeezed my arm. “It’s going to be great. Like that film – Bend It Like Beckham!”
“Only better!”
She dashed off, her plaits bouncing up and down her back as she ran.
I went to meet Petra in the dining room for second sitting. She had saved me a place with her clarinet case and moved it when I arrived.
“Good news – I’ve got ten names already,” I said.
“Minty.” She opened her sandwich box and began arranging her lunch in a line, savoury to sweet. She always does this. It’s weird, but not as weird as the McNeil twins who were heading our way.
They arrived with a whoosh, clambering over chairs and sitting either side of me. Don’t ask me which one was Daisy and which one was Dylan because I don’t know. They both have the same blonde hair cut to chin level. They both have the same blue eyes and sticky-out ears. They both have the same annoying laugh, like a donkey stuck in a lift. “Meganini! Thanks for letting us join Girls FC!” said the twin on my left.
“It’s the one for me!” said the one on my right.
“It’s where we want to be.”
“Playing for girls, you see.”
“Not UC, FC.”
The twins cracked up. Luckily, Mrs Woolcock, who used to be Miss Barnes until a few weeks ago when she got married, was supervising the next table. “Keep the noise down, girls, please,” she said.
“Sorry!” they chimed. “We’re just excited about playing football on Megan’s girls’ team. We’re going now. Smell you later!” They sprang out of their seats and tiptoed out of the dining hall making shh! noises.
Mrs Woolcock looked at me. “Really? A girls’ football team? That’s a good idea.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Is it only open to girls at this school? I’m sure Holly would love to join, but she goes to
Saddlebridge Primary.”
“Holly?”
“My stepdaughter. She’s very keen – well … she goes to watch Leicester City with her father. I’m sure she’d love to play and she could do with the exercise.”
“I’ll put her down,” I said, scrambling around for my pad.
“Do,” Mrs Woolcock said, then she bit her bottom lip and looked worried.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No … just … please don’t tell her what I said about her needing exercise… She’s a bit sensitive about her weight.”
“We won’t,” Petra promised.
After I had added Holly’s name I recited my list to Petra. “So that’s me, you, Tabinda, Nika, Lucy, Eve, Amy, Gemma, Daisy, Dylan and Holly. Yay! I’ve got eleven! I’ve got a full team! Maybe more!”
13
I was so nervous that first practice! Much worse than usual, when I feel sick and shaky and have to take deep breaths before going out on the field. This time I kept doing “What if?” questions in my head. What if Hannah and Katie changed their minds? What if the committee wouldn’t let us play? What if nobody turned up? What if they turned up and Hannah and Katie thought we were all rubbish and wasting their time? What if the field caught fire? What if I caught fire?
Of course none of that happened. Everyone turned up. The committee said they’d be happy to let us train for an hour, provided all the parents signed consent forms saying they wouldn’t blame them if their daughters broke something/were hit by lightning/got attacked by trolls at half-time or any of those other things grown-ups worry about.
The only slightly weird thing that happened was that instead of eleven players we had twelve. Auntie Mandy had invited that Jenny-Jane Bayliss along too. Yes, I’m serious!
When she had told me on the phone the night before, I couldn’t believe my ears. I looked from the receiver to my knuckles and back again. Auntie Mandy said she knew it was a strange thing to do, but explained that when she went round to Jenny-Jane’s house it was so obvious why Jenny-Jane behaved the way she did that she didn’t have the heart to take things further.
“Huh!” I grunted.
Auntie Mandy could tell I was a bit miffed. “Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they, Megan?”
“I suppose,” I replied.
“Besides,” Auntie Mandy said, “if Jenny-Jane is playing football with you, she can’t be pinching purses and iPods, can she?”
“I guess not.”
“And Hannah agreed.”
“Did she?”
“She said if I vouched for Jenny-Jane, then it was OK with her.”
“Well, if it’s OK with Hannah, it’s OK with me,” I said.
So there were twelve of us gathered on the field that evening. While I waited for Hannah and Katie to start, I couldn’t help giving Jenny-Jane a few sidelong glances. I was worried she might give me a sneery look as if to show she’d got one over on me, but she never so much as peered at me once. Instead I noticed that her trainers were dirty and scuffed and her joggers were a bit short for her legs. She looked pale and on edge and I suddenly felt sorry for her. I thought about what Auntie Mandy had said about everyone deserving a second chance. When Petra asked who Jenny-Jane was I just shrugged and said, “Someone from the village,” which was true.
Then Hannah and Katie stepped forward and introduced themselves. “Welcome to Lornton FC, girls.” Hannah grinned, and I forgot all about Jenny-Jane and all about feeling nervous. It was time to get down to business!
14
I loved those early sessions; they were awesome. After getting us to jog round the pitch and then showing us how to do proper stretches to warm up our muscles, Hannah took us through all sorts of exercises and drills to improve our co-ordination and agility. As well as using cones, she borrowed these things called fast foot ladders from the senior team. These were used to teach us different running and jumping techniques. They were great fun!
After that we worked in pairs, doing simple stuff like tapping the ball back and forth gently to each other, using different parts of the foot. It might sound basic but it’s not as easy as it looks when you’re a beginner! I always started with Petra, and she kept kicking it too hard and I kept not kicking it hard enough so we ended up either having to run for the ball or walking to it to start again! Then we swapped partners and practised something else. This way, we all got to know each other. I suppose we could tell what stage we were at, too.
Nika was good, just like her brother said she would be, and you could tell Eve and Lucy had played before. Eve’s friend Gemma was really skilled, too – better than Eve, actually. Holly, Mrs Woolcock’s stepdaughter, was a bit on the chubby side like Mrs Woolcock had implied but she joined in, no problem, and always kept up. Jenny-Jane was quiet and didn’t mix much but she was nippy on the ball. The only trouble was that once she had it she wouldn’t let go. “Hoggy Bayliss” I called her. I didn’t really mind, though. At least she tried. So did the twins, amazingly. They were usually the last to arrive and needed Hannah to repeat things to them about twenty times, but their enthusiasm was real enough.
The only one I didn’t like much was Amy Minter, Eve’s other friend from after-school club. I don’t know why Amy came. She was one of those girlie-girls who wear too much pink. Even her trainers were pink! During training, Amy would do some of the drills but whenever she got a bit bored she’d mess about or do silly things to get attention, like knocking all the cones out of the way or picking the ball up and running with it. It did my head in. I was worried Hannah and Katie wouldn’t go through with forming the team if Amy carried on being silly.
The best bit of every training session was towards the end of the hour. “OK, who’s ready for a game?” Hannah would ask.
We’d all cheer. Let’s face it, a game was what we’d been waiting for. It was usually six-a-side. “Line up then,” Hannah would tell us, a bundle of blue bibs in her arm for one team, yellow over the other arm for the opposing team. “And remember, no tackling until I’ve taught you how. I don’t want any injuries. Just close marking, please.”
We probably looked rubbish to anyone watching at that time. Everyone would soon forget their positions and we’d be running all over the place like wild ponies. I’d be in goal, watching it all unfold. Sometimes my whole defence would go AWOL, leaving me with the opposition charging at me, and I’d feel outnumbered like the soldiers in Zulu (my dad’s favourite film). Except I wasn’t scared; it was too immense, too exciting to be scary. Those training sessions were the highlight of my week.
15
I think it was in late April, maybe our fifth or sixth week of training, when things changed. I knew Katie wouldn’t be there because she’d told us she had to work overtime that Tuesday, and I remember having a bit of a cold, but apart from that everything should have been normal – but when I arrived at the ground I saw both fields being used. The Lornton Stags were playing a league game on the main pitch, and the training pitch was set up for training: all the equipment was out – but so were about twenty boys, running in and out of the cone channels, stepping in and out of the fast foot ladders … all the stuff we did.
I walked over to the touchline. “What’s happening?” I asked Tabinda.
She shrugged. “Looks like someone’s using our pitch.”
“Maybe they’re just finishing off,” I suggested.
“I don’t think so. Not if that’s anything to go by.” She nodded towards the far side of the pitch.
I glanced across to where Hannah and a man in a tracksuit were having a bit of an argument. Hannah kept pointing to her watch, then pointing at us. The guy – I didn’t know who he was – just shrugged.
More of the girls arrived and eventually Hannah walked over, her face apologetic. “I’m sorry,” she said, “there’s been some sort of … mix up. We can’t train tonight.”
“But it’s our time,” Lucy said.
“I know!” Hannah agreed, glaring angrily at the man, who
was bellowing something at one of the boys. “But as we’re not a ‘proper’ team, we don’t have priority.”
“That’s not fair,” Tabinda said.
“So we’ve got to go home without even touching a ball?” Eve asked. “That sucks!”
“Can’t we share the pitch?” I asked. “Have half each?”
Hannah shook her head. “I suggested that already. I was turned down flat.”
“This is so annoying! I’m missing America’s Top Model to come here,” Amy grumbled, with a flick of her hair.
Hannah sighed. “Look, I know it’s annoying, but there’s nothing I can do. Have you all got phones to call home? Otherwise you can use mine.”
“Who is he, anyway?” I asked, glancing across.
“Gary Browne. He’s the manager of the Under 10s.”
“Oh.” I frowned. I was sure I’d heard Auntie Mandy talking about one of the managers being a miserable old coot. I wondered if she meant him.
A second later I had my answer. Dylan and Daisy had begun running up and down, pretending to be aeroplanes bombing each other. Dylan (I had learned to tell the difference between them now – Dylan was always sucking a strand of her hair, Daisy wasn’t) accidentally clattered into one of the cones, catching Gary Browne’s attention. He shouted something, but Hannah, calling one of our mums on her mobile, had her back to him and didn’t hear. He jogged towards us.
Up close Gary Browne was quite scary: short but broad-shouldered, with thin hair brushed back from his leathery face. His mouth was set in a hard line. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, coming to a halt just in front of us. “Hannah – move these little girls, will you? They’re putting my lads off!”
“Zoooooooooooooom!” said Dylan, swerving round him.
Hannah turned and switched off her phone. “Oh, OK, sorry,” she said. “Come on, you lot; let’s go and watch the other match. We’ll be able to pick up some tips.”
Do Goalkeepers Wear Tiaras? Page 3