T.J. and the Winning Goal

by Theo Walcott

  ‘I know,’ said TJ, who had been thinking the same thing. But now the screen changed. Maggie Burnside was talking to the camera, and in the background the Parkview dinner ladies were chanting and dancing. ‘Parkview have already won their District Championship this year,’ the presenter said. ‘And they’ve won the Inter-Schools Cup too. This weekend they’ll be off to the Regional Championship. We’ve come to their final warm-up match to see for ourselves just how good they are.’

  There was a long shot of the match in progress. ‘There you are, TJ,’ said his brother Joey. ‘Over there on the wing. And there’s Jamie.’

  Then Ebony filled the screen, scoring her first goal, followed by a shot of the keeper dropping the ball and Ebony sliding home her second. Finally they saw Ebony complete her hat-trick, before the camera cut back to Maggie Burnside interviewing her.

  ‘That’s not right,’ said Joey. ‘Anyone would think Ebony was the only person in the team.’

  ‘You’re the one who scored the goals,’ Maggie Burnside was saying. ‘And you’re playing in a big tournament soon, I hear. I expect you’ll score lots of goals there too.’

  ‘I hope so,’ replied Ebony.

  ‘That was Ebony Green,’ Maggie Burnside said. ‘Hat-trick heroine of Parkview School. And this is Maggie Burnside, handing you back to the studio.’

  There was silence in the Wilsons’ living room. ‘It’s not Ebony’s fault,’ TJ said. ‘I mean, it is amazing that she scored a hat-trick in her first match.’

  ‘Just like you, you mean?’ smiled his mum. ‘I suppose you’re right. But I still think it’s a shame there was nothing about all the work everyone did, mending the football pitch and painting and decorating and the World Food day, and the school dinners . . .’

  ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ TJ said. But he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. And he knew that Tulsi was going to be more annoyed than anyone.

  He was right. When he got to school the next day Tulsi was hopping mad. ‘How could she?’ she was saying to Jamie in the playground. ‘It was just her first full game, and she wouldn’t have scored any of those goals if it hadn’t been for the rest of you.’

  ‘It wasn’t really like that . . .’ Jamie began.

  But Tulsi interrupted. ‘I’m going to tell her what I think,’ she said angrily. ‘There she is now.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Jamie. ‘She didn’t do anything wrong.’

  But it was too late to stop Tulsi. She was already standing in front of Ebony. ‘You shouldn’t have talked to them,’ she said. ‘You could have let Jamie do it, or TJ, or . . . or anybody.’

  ‘I know,’ said Ebony tearfully. ‘I’m really sorry. I’m going to tell Mr Wood I don’t want to be in the team any more.’

  Tulsi had her mouth open to say more things to Ebony, but now she stopped. ‘You can’t,’ Jamie told Ebony. ‘You played great. We need you in the tournament, just like we need Tulsi.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said TJ. ‘We’re going to need all our best players. We’ll be playing against some of the best teams in the country.’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ said Ebony. ‘Not after that. Everyone thinks I wanted to be the one they took pictures of, but I didn’t.’

  Ebony walked miserably into school.

  ‘You’ll have to talk to her,’ Jamie said to Tulsi. ‘She’ll listen to you. She was so good on Sunday. We need her in the squad.’

  ‘What, instead of me?’ asked Tulsi.

  ‘No way,’ said TJ. ‘You know none of us will play every game in the tournament. Except Jamie in goal, unless he gets injured. We need Ebony to play.’

  But when school ended and everyone went to fetch their football kit Tulsi still hadn’t said anything to Ebony. Ebony collected her bag and headed for the exit.

  ‘Tulsi,’ said TJ. ‘You have to. Go and talk to her. It’s not fair, you know it isn’t.’

  Tulsi hesitated, then she sighed and dropped her bag on the floor. She ran out of the door and TJ saw her catch up with Ebony by the school gate. They talked for a few moments, then they both turned and walked back into school.

  ‘At last,’ said TJ. ‘Now maybe we can get on with training.’

  ‘And after all that,’ said Rob, ‘we’d better hope that Tulsi can still remember how to play the way she did in the park.’

  ‘I think she might,’ said TJ with a grin. ‘It looks like her personal coach has come along to give her some help. Hi, Mrs Patel.’

  Tulsi’s gran gave them a big wave, as they ran onto the field. ‘Knock ’em dead, Tulsi,’ she yelled, with a wave of her umbrella.

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘FIRST OF ALL,’ Mr Wood said when they’d finished their warm-ups, ‘I hope none of you paid any attention to that TV report. Ebony played very well, but it was a team performance, and that’s what we’ll need to win the tournament. I’ve arranged some fixtures for our B team and I’ll be choosing that team today as well. So you’ve all got plenty to work for. Now, take a ball with your partner and work in a ten-metre square. One of you dribbles and shields the ball, the other one tries to win it. Dead simple. Off you go.’

  TJ was working with Rob. ‘We do this sort of thing on the playground all the time,’ said TJ. ‘Why’s he making us do it now?’

  ‘Maybe because you’re rubbish at it,’ said Rob, sneaking a foot around TJ’s defences and tapping the ball away from him. ‘Go on, then, get it off me.’

  Rob hunched himself over the ball like a crab. Then, when TJ committed himself and tried to tackle him, Rob flicked the ball up onto his foot and over TJ’s head. ‘I’ve been wanting to try that for ages,’ Rob said, laughing. ‘I saw Paco Sanchez doing it on the Internet. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you should let me have a turn at dribbling,’ TJ said, as Rob fended him off expertly once again.

  ‘You give up then?’ said Rob. ‘You’re admitting I’m better than you?’

  Rob took his eye off the ball for a second and TJ darted in and stole it away. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I fooled you.’

  They were still laughing when Mr Wood called them together. ‘It’s an important skill,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve coached you to move the ball quickly, but there are lots of times when you just need to hold onto it. We’ll be playing against top teams and in a close game it’s crucial that you can keep the ball and give other players a chance to find space for you to make a pass. Now, before we play five-a-side we’ll have a little game of pig-in-the-middle. Three circles, two players in the middle of each, and you all have to play the ball first time with your weaker foot. We’ll be watching, so no cheating. Oh, and if you’re in the middle when my whistle blows you have to show us your best dance move for ten seconds!’

  By the time they finished the game, everyone was laughing, and TJ had learned at least ten dance moves he would never have thought of. ‘Some of those moves were seriously bad,’ laughed Rafi, as Mr Wood organized them into teams.

  ‘Yeah, but did you see Jamie? He can actually dance!’

  ‘Maybe he should do it in a match,’ replied Rafi. ‘When the other team are taking a penalty. That would really put them off!’

  ‘Get a move on, you two,’ called Mr Wood. ‘You’re on this pitch here with Tommy and Danny, and Jamie in goal. You’re the Greens.’

  ‘Hey!’ said TJ. ‘This should be fun.’

  ‘You can play against this lot,’ Mr Wood continued. ‘Ebony, Tulsi, Leila, Rob. Diane – you go in goal.’

  Rob laughed and pulled on a blue bib.

  ‘You know what?’ he said to TJ. ‘I reckon we can beat you.’

  ‘Hi, TJ,’ called a girl’s voice from the other side of the fence. TJ looked up and saw his sister Lou. She was with Matt, Jamie’s brother. TJ suddenly felt nervous. If he got beaten by a team with four girls in it, Lou would never stop going on about it. Not ever. And he knew that the girls were good. With Rob laying on passes for them they might even be very good.

  Tulsi kicked off, and Ebony played the ball back to Rob. Tommy went to
tackle him, but even Tommy wasn’t going to get the ball off Rob. He turned away and laid the ball back to Leila, who curved a pass forward to Ebony. She took the ball in her stride and then pulled it back to Tulsi in midfield. TJ tried to get a tackle in, but Tulsi had already released the ball back to Rob, and . . .

  TJ couldn’t believe it. He’d lost Tulsi! One moment she’d been there, and now . . . Where was she? Then he looked round and saw her. At the same moment he saw the ball flash past him, saw Tulsi hit it first time, and almost at the same instant, saw it crash into the back of the net.

  Mr Wood stood on the touchline and applauded. ‘Great teamwork, Blues!’ he said. ‘Keep it up! Let’s see you come back at them, Greens.’

  ‘We can’t lose,’ TJ hissed at Rafi. ‘My sister’s watching.’

  ‘You’d better do something brilliant, then,’ grinned Rafi. Jamie rolled the ball out to Danny, and then it was at TJ’s feet. He gave it inside to Rafi and set off on a run down the wing, but as he chased after Rafi’s return pass he was astonished to see Tulsi running beside him. He just managed to reach the ball first, but he couldn’t get a cross in. He turned and shielded the ball from Tulsi, desperately looking for someone to pass to. Rafi and Tommy both called for it, but they were both marked. I have to get past her, thought TJ, and he tried to fool Tulsi with a swerve. But she knew him too well. She took the ball away from him and snapped off a pass to Rob, who instantly hit it upfield into the path of Ebony’s curving run. Jamie managed to save her shot, but only just. At the end of the game the score was still 1–0 to the Blues.

  ‘What’s up, TJ?’ Rob asked him, as they put the equipment away. ‘You’re not still worrying about being beaten by girls.’

  ‘No,’ replied TJ. ‘And they had you on their side anyway. That makes a big difference.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Tulsi and Ebony are both fantastic. They played really well together, especially with you giving them passes.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I’d been thinking that if Tulsi got back in the squad then some of the time I’d play up front with Tulsi, and sometimes with Ebony. But there was another possibility that I hadn’t thought of. Mr Wood might want Tulsi to play up front with Ebony. Some games I might not even play at all.’ He got changed in silence. It could actually happen, he thought. Even if I’m playing well Mr Wood might decide it’s better to play the others. He might drop me.

  And suddenly, for the first time, he really understood how Tulsi had been feeling.

  CHAPTER 17

  WHEN TJ LEFT school after training his sister was waiting for him. ‘Hey, TJ,’ she said, ‘I’ll walk home with you.’

  TJ groaned. He knew he couldn’t stop her. When Lou decided to do something then she did it, whether you liked it or not. ‘Hi, Rob,’ she said, as he joined them. ‘Nice work with those girls. Did they all get in the team?’

  ‘Tulsi, Ebony and Leila did. Diane’s goalkeeper in the B team. Mr Wood’s entered them into a league. Actually, the B team could probably beat most other teams around here.’

  ‘So, who else is in the squad?’ demanded Lou. ‘I want to hear it first!’

  ‘Jamie in goal,’ replied Rob with a grin. ‘Tommy, Rodrigo and Danny in defence. You were right about Danny, TJ. He makes a lot of tackles.’

  ‘Danny got in!’ said Lou. ‘That’s great. You should see those little twins, Rob. They are so cool. I went round to Danny’s house with Mum the other day.’

  ‘What twins?’ asked Rob.

  ‘He’s got little sisters,’ said Lou. ‘He’s been looking after them lots. That’s why he wasn’t going to training. And they were keeping him up at night too, and . . . ’

  ‘And he told me not to tell anyone,’ TJ said, with a look at his sister.

  ‘So, who else is in the team then?’ said Lou after a pause.

  ‘Well, there’s Rafi in midfield and me and TJ and that’s it,’ said Rob.

  ‘You’re not saying much, TJ,’ Lou said.

  ‘He’s worrying about his place in the team.’

  ‘No way! Is that true, TJ?’

  TJ nodded. ‘You saw Ebony playing with Tulsi. Mr Wood could easily play both of them up front. Why not?’

  ‘You are a fool, little bro,’ his sister told him. ‘You’ve just spent ages helping Tulsi get back in the team because you know you need a strong squad for this tournament. And now you’ve got a strong squad, here you are moaning about it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ replied TJ. ‘I suppose I’m just a bit nervous, that’s all.’

  ‘You should be,’ Lou said, smiling. ‘We’re all coming to watch and I’m expecting something big.’

  *

  The tournament was taking place on Saturday in a big city nearly a hundred miles away. The squad were going to travel there on Friday afternoon with Mr Wood and Miss Berry, leaving school at lunch time and staying the night in a Youth Centre close to the ground. On Friday morning TJ was awake long before his alarm went off. He had dreamed in the night that they had reached the final, and Ebony had scored a hat-trick. He couldn’t remember if he’d been playing or not.

  He got up and checked his kit again, then looked at his overnight bag. He had never spent the night in a strange place on his own before. Well, he knew he wouldn’t be on his own, but his mum and dad wouldn’t be there until the next day, or his gran either. He told himself he was being stupid. It was only one night. He could guess what Lou would say.

  His alarm went off, and the day began. They were eating breakfast when they heard the clatter of the letterbox. TJ’s dad came back into the kitchen with a bundle of letters in his hand. He was reading one of them.

  ‘What is it?’ asked TJ’s mum. ‘I know that look. It’s something important, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Mr Wilson. ‘We have to get TJ off on his big adventure. I’ll tell you about it later. Now then, TJ, are you ready? Have a good trip. We’ll see you at the ground tomorrow.’

  ‘Here,’ said his mum, squeezing a large plastic box into the top of one of his bags. ‘Snacks for the journey,’ she said, giving him a kiss. ‘Good luck, love.’

  ‘Has anyone seen Danny?’ Mr Wood asked them, when he had finished calling the register. ‘TJ, you’re his friend, aren’t you?’

  ‘He’s not here,’ TJ said. ‘Maybe he’s ill.’

  Mr Wood looked worried. ‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘It’s really too late to arrange for anyone to take his place. I’ll get the office to call home and see if we can find out what’s happened. I’m sure he’ll be here by break time.’

  But at morning break there was still no sign of Danny. It wasn’t until the minibus was actually pulling out of the school gate that TJ saw him running down the road towards them with two bags bouncing awkwardly against his side. ‘Stop!’ called TJ to Mr Wood. ‘Wait!’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Danny gasped, as Miss Berry opened the side door and let him into the bus.

  ‘OK, Danny,’ laughed Miss Berry. ‘You made it. That’s the main thing. Right, everyone. We’re on our way at last.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ TJ asked, as Danny sat quietly in the seat in front of him, but Danny shook his head and didn’t reply and TJ was soon busy talking to the rest of his excited team-mates.

  There were five other teams staying at the Youth Centre that night. By the time the Parkview minibus arrived after a long hold-up on the motorway all the other teams were already eating in the canteen. TJ and Rob collected a big plateful of sausage and mash and sat at a table where a noisy conversation was going on.

  ‘You should have seen it,’ a tall boy with curly black hair was saying. ‘We were playing the Manchester United Academy and Bazza was just too good for them. Well, we all were, but Bazza got the goals.’

  He patted the boy next to him on the head. The boy grinned behind his glasses.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not the only one who wears them,’ Rob muttered to TJ.

  ‘They all play for Academies at big clubs as well as t
heir school teams,’ whispered TJ. ‘They must all be brilliant.’

  ‘Who are you lot?’ asked the curly-haired boy. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Parkview School,’ said TJ.

  ‘Never heard of them. Are any of you playing for an Academy?’

  TJ shook his head. ‘I’d like to, though,’ he said awkwardly, trying to be friendly. ‘Me and Jamie go to the Wanderers Player Development Centre. We . . .’

  But the other boy wasn’t listening any more. As soon as they could, Rob and TJ slipped away to join the rest of the boys in their room. The girls were in a separate dorm in a different part of the building. ‘There was a kid on our table who plays for Aston Villa,’ Jamie said. ‘And another one who –’

  ‘They were probably just making it up,’ said Rafi. But he didn’t seem too sure. ‘And anyway,’ he continued after a moment’s thought, ‘it’s school teams we’re playing against. Even if a team has one or two kids in it who play for an Academy, the rest of them are just like us, aren’t they?’

  ‘Maybe,’ replied Jamie. ‘But they made it sound like all of them were brilliant.’

  The door opened and Mr Wood’s head appeared. ‘Bed,’ he said. ‘Lights out in five minutes, and don’t stay awake all night talking. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

  ‘As if we didn’t know that already,’ said TJ, as he climbed into his bunk.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE NEXT MORNING the boys sat together at breakfast. TJ didn’t feel hungry, and he could see that no one else did either. They were looking around the room at the other teams, who all seemed to be having a great time.

  ‘Hey,’ said Miss Berry, arriving with the girls, ‘why all the long faces? We’re here. We’re in the Regional Tournament. Cheer up!’

  ‘Miss Berry’s right,’ said Mr Wood. ‘And you have to eat. You’ve got a long day ahead of you. A very long day if you make it all the way to the final.’

  ‘There’s no chance of that,’ said TJ. ‘There are lots of kids here who play for Academies. They play for big clubs. None of them are nervous like we are.’