Starting Eleven (7 page)

Chapter 9

BY THE TIME
I’d got over my shock we were on the pitch, ready to kick off against Clarendon United. My dad was watching from the sidelines and he waved at me and shouted encouragement. Chris’s and Abs’s dads were there too, alongside Jason’s mum.

‘You can do it, son!’ my dad shouted at me.

I nodded and held my thumb up to him. Then I turned and looked around at my team-mates. Lily was playing in midfield with Jason, Byron and Corky. I was at the
back
alongside Steven, with Leon on the right and Parvy on the left. Up front were Abs and Chris, and Gurinder was in goal. The subs were Ant and the twins, even though they were injured, and two more girls, Emma and Penny.

‘We’re in trouble,’ said Byron as I stood behind him.

‘Positive,’ I replied. ‘We’ve got to be positive . . .’

Only it was hard to be positive. When Clarendon United’s players had seen that we had girls in our team, they started laughing at us. Some of them were taunting us, asking if we all had to wear skirts and stuff like that. Mr Turner had used it in the final team talk, telling us to remember their annoying taunts so we’d try even harder.

‘You’re a
team
,’ he told us. ‘You
play
for each other and you
back
each other up – no matter what.’

Now as we stood in the rain, waiting for the whistle to start the game, I wasn’t at all confident. In fact, I was expecting to lose. But I tried to shake off the negative feeling. My dad had always taught me to be positive, in any situation. If you believed you were going to lose before you started, you’d already lost.

‘Come on, lads!’ I shouted out, trying to get them going.

‘Er . . . ?’ said Lily, turning to me.

‘And girls!’ I added.

‘What a bunch of losers!’ shouted one of United’s players, a tall lad with long brown hair and zits on his forehead.

‘COME ON, YOU REDS!!!!!!!!!!’ I heard my dad sing out. Then Chris’s dad joined in too. We really were in a proper game! I took a deep breath and focused as Mr Turner, who was referee, blew on his whistle.

*

We did OK for the first fifteen minutes. Because we hadn’t played together before, there was a lot of simple passing, just like Mr James and Miss Rice had told us to do. We even had a couple of shots on goal but Chris missed with both of them. After about twenty minutes though, Clarendon started to get better. They were trying to get the ball out to their right wing, where they had a fast and skilful winger. He was playing against Parvy. I nudged Steven and nodded towards Parvy.

‘They’re trying to get to her,’ I said. Steven nodded. The ball had gone out for a throw-in to us and I trotted over to take it. Miss Rice was waiting for me.

‘Get some support in there for Parvy,’ she told me. ‘Don’t let her get isolated, OK, Dal?’

‘No problem, miss,’ I replied, throwing the ball to Jason.

Jason swivelled and ran down the left before passing the ball inside to Abs. Abs waited for a second, knowing that there was a defender coming. Then he went to go left but switched at the last minute and the defender got caught out. He skidded through the mud and landed on his backside. Abs grinned and went on a run, taking two more of their players with him. Then he was at the by-line.

He saw Byron making a run into the box and crossed so that Byron could just push the ball into the net. But Byron missed it and the ball fell to Lily. As she brought it under control, one of their defenders ran at her, making a growling noise. He was trying to scare her, put her off. But as we all watched, Lily waited until he got close, flicked the ball over his head and ran around him. She didn’t wait for the ball to hit the ground. Instead she volleyed it back towards Byron.
This
time he controlled it and passed it to his left. Quick as a flash Chris appeared and tapped the ball home underneath their goalie.

‘YESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!’ I shouted, pumping my fist in the air.

1–0!

We ended the half a goal up. But early in the second half they equalized from a corner. I tried desperately to reach the ball, but it went over my head and fell at the feet of one of their best players. As Steven tried to block him, he smashed the ball home and then turned to me.

‘
Have that!
’ he shouted. ‘Come on, lads – we’re not getting beat by a bunch of girls!’

We tried to get it back together but suddenly we couldn’t pass the ball properly and our teamwork just failed. I got the ball in defence and ran out with it, sidestepping a
few
challenges. Then I played the ball square to Corky, who was desperate to score. He played a one-two with Jason and when he got the ball back Abs started calling for it. But Corky ignored him and Lily too. He looked up and saw the goal in front of him. He was still quite far out but he swung back his left foot and took a shot. His right foot slipped in the mud though, just as he made contact with the ball. The ball went horribly wide and the Clarendon players all ran to Corky and made fun of him.

‘We knew you were rubbish!’ said one lad.

‘Had to join a girls’ team,’ said another lad. ‘Now he’s shooting like a girl too.’

I could see Corky was getting angry and so could Leon and Byron. All three of us ran over to him and calmed him down. But things just got worse after that. Soon Clarendon United had scored another two goals. By the full-time whistle, we were
cold
, wet, muddy and down.

‘That’ll teach you to play with girls,’ said one of their players as we trudged off.

‘Three–one!’

‘Yeah,’ said another United player. ‘Go put your skirts back on!’

I spun round to say something but Miss Rice caught hold of me.

‘Let them gloat,’ she told me. ‘A few more games and we’ll be right up there – you’ll see . . .’

I shook my head. ‘We should have done better,’ I said.

‘Yes, and next time you will,’ she told me. ‘It’s early days. The soccer season is long and hard. Never mind about today. We’ll get it right next time. Now, go get showered.’

Once everyone was dressed, Mr Turner called us all into the main part of the
building
which was a community centre. He sat us down and told us that we’d done very well.

‘But we got thumped!’ complained Corky.

‘Yes – but you played for each other. As the games continue, we’ll get better,’ promised Mr Turner. ‘The more we practise together, the better we’ll be.’

‘Oh, and one more thing,’ added Mr James. ‘There’ll be a television crew at Tuesday’s training. I’ve got consent forms for you to give to your parents. If you want to be part of the TV thing, you need to get these signed and bring them back to me on Tuesday.’

I looked over at Chris, who shrugged.

‘What’s the TV thing about?’ I asked.

‘Just wait and see,’ said Miss Rice. ‘All will be explained next week . . .’

*

Lily and Parvy stood in the car park with us as we waited for lifts home. The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to peek through the clouds. But it was still windy and cold.

‘So, did we play well then?’ asked Parvy.

‘No!’ said Abs, being childish.

‘Don’t be like that!’ said Jason. ‘You did OK.’

‘Yeah,’ added Abs. ‘But if we’d had all boys we wouldn’t have lost . . .’

‘We all played OK,’ said Chris. ‘But not good. Abs is just being silly.’

‘Yeah – we’ll just have to do better next week,’ I added.

‘
You
will,’ said Lily. ‘You need to stop running like a headless chicken and pass me the ball more . . .’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because, my dear, I’m better than you,’ she explained.

‘Don’t call me that!’ I moaned.

She pinched my left cheek. ‘Don’t be like that,’ she said in a baby voice.

‘
OWW!
Gerroff – that hurts!’ I shouted.

‘Oh, don’t be such a wimp,’ said Parvy.

‘Yeah, Dal,’ added Chris. ‘You’ll want to wear a skirt next . . .’

As they all burst into laughter, I rubbed my cheek and wondered what would happen in the next game. Would we win or lose? And what was the TV thing about? I turned to my friends.

‘Are you all OK for training on Tuesday?’ I asked.

‘
YEAH!!!!
’ said everyone apart from Jason.

‘
Rushie Reds, Rushie Reds, Rushie Reds
!’ he sang.

‘Oh, do stop singing,’ Lily told him.

I looked at Lily and she blew me a kiss.

‘Are
you
coming too?’ I asked, hoping that she’d say no.

‘Of
course
, darling,’ she replied. Why did she have to speak to me like
that
? I felt my face turn the colour of beetroot. Lily walked off and joined her mum, who was talking to Miss Rice.

‘Great,’ I said to her just before she went, but I didn’t mean it. I was just praying for my dad to stop talking to the other parents and take me home.

Not that I was
too
desperate to get away. It
had
been great fun. I’d made the squad and been picked for the starting eleven. We might have lost our first game but we were definitely going to get better.

Rushton Reds were going to be the best soccer squad in the whole league. And me and my friends were going to be right at the heart of the team. I’d spent ages wanting to be part of a team, playing proper games.

And now I had that chance I wasn’t going to lose it.

I was a Rushton Red!

‘You OK, Dal?’ asked my dad. I hadn’t even noticed him walk over to me. I’d been too busy daydreaming.

‘Yeah!’ I said, beaming. ‘I’m great!’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bali Rai thinks he is a very lucky man. He gets to write all day if he wants to, or to go into schools to speak to his readers about what they think of his books. He loves films, music, reading, seeing friends and watching his beloved Liverpool FC.

Bali played for his school team as a defender and loved it. He has been a lifelong football fan since he began watching
Match of the Day at the
age of four with his dad. He enjoys talking and arguing about Liverpool FC and would like to be Rafa Benitez's or Steven Gerrard's personal servant, but if this does not happen he is happy to carry on writing for his thousands of fans.

Bali was very honoured that his short novel
Dream On
(about a young footballer) was chosen for the first Booked-Up list and was made available to every Year 7 school child.

Bali's books are now in ten languages and he also gets to travel all over the world to meet his readers. He hopes that he can encourage anyone to have a go at writing and to find a love of reading. He has won lots of book awards and really enjoys winning the ones that are voted for by the real readers – you!

Bali lives in his home city of Leicester. He has a lovely new wife and a football-crazy daughter.

Also by Bali Rai

Don’t miss any of the books in this fabulous football series:

SOCCER SQUAD: MISSING!
SOCCER SQUAD: STARS!
SOCCER SQUAD: GLORY!

SOCCER SQUAD: STARTING ELEVEN
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 407 04773 7

Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
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This ebook edition published 2014

Copyright © Bali Rai, 2012
Illustrations copyright © Mike Phillips, 2012

First Published in Great Britain

Red Fox ISBN 9781862306547, 2012

The right of Bali Rai to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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