1.38 - Five Goals in Six Minutes

38.

Six minutes to go. Still ahead by four. But the clock starting to drag. Time stretching. Maybe the City coach had her own curse with her own perks. 'Fergie Time,' perhaps, named after the legendary Man U manager who won so, so many games with late, late goals.

And City scoring five goals in six minutes was more than possible. We were all past our limits. Lula was struggling to get a tune out of her body. Nobby's head was bobbing up and down like she'd been in a mosh pit a couple of hours too long. Freyja was trying to conduct, but she was always a beat behind.

In the blue corner, Sarah Greene was a one-man band. She was thumping a drum, crashing a cymbal, wibbling the harmonica, and noodling a keytar. (What, you don't know what a keytar is? Picture a cross between a keyboard and a guitar. What, you can't picture that? Never mind. Just skip this paragraph. It's not for you.) She was freestyling the lyrics, rap battling against all and sundry, harmonising with herself, dedicating her EGOT to Jesus and her parents.

The rest of her team were quietly singing 'bom bom biddly bom' in the background. If they'd been raptured up to heaven, the game would barely have changed.

Beth was watching Greene. Tracking her, staying five yards away. Was Beth past her limits? In a way, yes. Greene got the ball and started yet another dribble. Beth adjusted her armband.

It's Greene again. She is unstoppable today! She moves forward.

Anna tries to block. Greene leaves her for dead.

Freyja comes over to make a challenge. She is looking fatigued.

Greene nutmegs her.

Freyja gains ten humiliation points. From this moment on, she will never be able to find true happiness.

Greene spins past Beth. Nobby is the last man. She does well to delay the attacker.

Greene shapes to shoot.

But she's fouled!

A really poor challenge from behind.

Greene was crumpled up on the floor, clutching her ankle. Beth was explaining to the (much shorter) referee that the City trickster was just too fast - it had been accidental. Hmm, I thought.

The referee, and I was really starting to like this girl, showed Beth the yellow card. One more of those and she'd be sent off. And that would be the end of that. No way we could defend if City had an extra man. Beth couldn't commit that sort of foul again.

The City coach signalled that Greene should sub off. But she said no, she wanted to keep playing. Actually, I'm pretty sure she just wanted to take the free kick. There are some players who are like that. Their team gets a free kick or a penalty and they are just drawn to the ball like bored shoppers to a half-decent busker.

Greene didn't leave the pitch but she did, at least, hobble to the edge to get some magic spray. And Beth went over to apologise. Let me try that again. Beth went over 'to apologise'.

Beth put her arm around Greene's shoulders and leant a bit closer.

I don't know what she said.

You don't know what she said.

But we both know what she said.

Greene turned a bit paler, and suddenly she didn't want to take the free kick. The one-man band reverted to being just another cog in the machine.

***

Five minutes to go. City's coach was about to make her last big change. Carmen, City's worst player, was primed and ready. A disaster waiting to happen. But Sandra, the City coach, had her principles, and one was that every player played every game. Admirable. But dude. Not today.

I stared at Sandra. Tried to telepathically beg her not to do it. In her current mood, Beth would chomp Carmen's head off.

Amazingly, Sandra looked over at me. I shook my head. Sandra frowned, I think, but slapped Carmen on the back, and the kid sprinted on.

Even more amazingly, Sophia was one of the subs when this happened, just like in the first game. "Oh!" she said, slapping her forehead. "That's why you were being so weird."

"What?" I said, fooling no-one.

"Back in the first City match. I thought you were autistic. But you wanted us to press that one. Why didn't you say?"

"What do you mean? She's no better or worse than the rest of them."

Sophia stretched her leg behind her back. "I know you a little bit, Max. Your poker face needs work."

"What's all this?" said Jackie.

"Max wants us to attack that girl who just came on," said Sophia. She stopped stretching and looked up at me. "Don't you, Max?"

Did I? I looked around. To the right, Jane, who'd scored two goals and risked harm throwing herself at every shot. To the left, Kisi, wondering what I was going to say, who'd been doing some mental disintegration on my behalf. Ahead, Beth, who'd brutally put paid to the Sarah Greene show. And up above, the scoreboard. 4-0. That would be a good result, wouldn't it? Hadn't I asked enough of these women?

"Sweep the leg," I said.

"Yes!" said Kisi, punching the air.

"Okay but what?" said Sophia.

She hadn't seen The Karate Kid. What a world. "Swipe left," I said. "Push her in a puddle and steal her lunch money."

"Yeah, okay, okay," she said. "I'll do it."

"No," I said. "Get Beth to do it."

***

There isn't a lot to say about the next phase. City's goalie passed to Carmen, and Beth pounced on her like a mountain lion from a trampoline. Beth took the ball, moved closer to goal, and hit a weak shot. The goalie collected it and waved at her team to breathe, to slow down, to be calm.

"Beth," I said, subbing her off. She was knackered. They all were, but I needed Beth's aggression in reserve in case someone else started dribbling us. Nobody did.

The game slowed to a crawl. It was done. City had lost. We'd won. We had a couple of minutes to think about it. To let it sink in.

With twenty seconds left, Sarah Greene took the ball, went on a mazy dribble, and shot. It went wide, and then she subbed off for the last few seconds. Just in case.

I felt sorry for her. She just wanted to play. To pass the ball, control the game, and win, sure, but also to dribble, to do tricks, to shoot. And it wasn't just defenders kicking her that made her think twice - it was her coaching. She was being coached against her natural inclination. Would that make her a better player in the end? I mean, probably, yeah. But it would also make her a more antiseptic player. Lifeless. It was such a shame. If Beth hadn't threatened to send her home in an ambulance, would she have treated us to a wonderful display of dynamic, breezy forward play? Probably. Would we have lost? Probably.

I still would have liked to see it.

And then the buzzer went.

The Beth Heads tried to go tonto but they were so utterly spent all they could really do was cheer and then flop to the floor. The next set of players would need to wipe the playing surface with towels or they'd slip everywhere.

Jackie gave me a little tap on the shoulder and went off to chat to Freyja. Ziggy hugged Lula. They kissed. Was that their first? It didn't look like it. Beth came and sat cross-legged in front of me.

"Well, Max. You did it."

"I couldn't have done it without your help," I said. Magnanimously.

She laughed. "You little shit." She flopped onto her back and closed her eyes. We stayed like that for a moment. The City players were quietly gathering their kit and shuffling towards the changing rooms. Their coach looked shell-shocked. Beth, eyes still closed, said, "Do you remember when I said this was impossible?"

"Yes."

"But it was."

Another moment. I wrung my hands. "Do you think I should apologise to their coach?"

Eyes popped open. "What the fuck for?"

"You know," I said. "The stuff." The stuff I made you do.

Beth narrowed her eyes at me. "You're doing it again, Max. If I had any energy left I'd beat the shit out of you." She lay back. Her breaths were slowing. "When we met you were pretty obnoxious about women's football. But when you watched us, you really watched us. When you coached, we felt coached. I know you paid Jackie to come and train us. I'm one thousand percent positive you've got an ulterior motive, but I don't give a shit. I want to be treated seriously and this is the one part of my life where you, Max Best, treat me absolutely serious. And you treated those Man City kids like the four horsemen of the apocalypse and their coach like the devil herself. You came up with a plan and pushed us and got in our heads and we beat them. We fucking beat them. They won't be happy right now, but at some point they'll realise that the lot of us spent three fucking weeks preparing for tonight and they'll be thankful someone took them serious enough to do that. I know I would." She had turned away from me, and now she wiped a hand around her eyes. Suddenly, she was upright, and in my face. Jabbing a finger at me. "If you apologise for that I'll never speak to you again."

I licked my lips. "Aye, aye, cap'n."

That reminded her. The armband. She ripped it off and waved it in front of my face. "And this? I'm keeping this," she said, and stormed off towards the changing rooms.

As she flounced away, I saw something strange. Sandra was talking to Jane. Coach and keeper. A combination of people I'd never expected to see! I briefly wondered if they were related or something like that. It was possible.

Sandra walked away. I caught Jane's eye and she came over. "What was that all about?" I said.

"Oh," Jane said, as she pressed a football between her gloved hands. "City's coach said I scored two goals and that was as good as a hat-trick for a goalkeeper. So she gave me the match ball."

"You deserve it," I said. "You were fantastic. And a clean sheet, too!"

"Yeah," she grinned. She wandered off, bouncing the ball a few times.

City's coach. Class act. Jesus Christ.

***

The Yalleys took Kisi home - Mr Yalley wanted a big chat but I promised to meet them after church on Sunday. Jackie, Ziggy, and I waited around the reception area. I wanted to go home and sleep - I was wrecked - but that was out of the question. It was pub or eternal social leperdom. I'd started the City mania. I had to be there.

The City kids dribbled past in ones and twos. Many had earbuds in, and some wore massive, garish headphones like the pros. I wasn't sure if they had a big team bus that drove them round, or a minivan or what. When the kids went by, I tried to blend into the wall. But when Sandra and Meghan came through at the same time, I felt myself darting forward.

"Oh, Sandra," I said.

She gave me a fairly cold look. Probably not amused that I'd been dancing around singing songs about myself. Fair comment. "Max, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Quick thing. Can I apologise to Meghan, please?" Neither of them had been expecting that. Meghan had taken out one Airpod, and now she took the other one out, too. I was trying to rush through, like ripping off a plaster. Which, by the way, is stupid and I never do. I looked at the girl. "Last night I was watching a match here and saw a really bad leg break. It put me on edge. So when you did that foul I lost my mind. But it wasn't really about you and you don't deserve that. So I'm sorry."

Meghan didn't know what to say, so she said nothing. She did a sort of half a shrug.

Sandra must have been a teacher. She just must. What she said next was genetically hard-coded into all teachers, everywhere. "Meghan, do you have anything to say?"

"No," she said. "I don't really believe him."

"Oh," I said. "That's fine. I wanted to apologise and I've done it."

Sandra thought this was a teachable moment or whatever, and she dragged it out. "Max, did you really see a broken leg?"

I pulled my phone out and showed them the 14-minute call I'd made to 999.

"Oh," said Meghan. "Okay. Soz."

"Nah," I said. "It doesn't matter if I saw the leg break or not. I still shouldn't have lost my shit. It was bang out of order."

Sandra was very happy with how this little exchange had gone. "Wonderful," she said. "And fortunately, the girl you fouled was able to run it off. A generous helping of magic spray, yes?" She laughed and started towards the exit.

"Yeah," said Meghan. She started putting her earbuds back in and got ready to pull her hoodie up. "Also the fact that I didn't even touch her."

Her words chilled me.

I didn't even touch her. Where had I heard something almost identical to that, quite recently?

I stared at Jackie and Ziggy. The tension racheted up to unbearable levels. My body was ready to act even if my brain needed a few more seconds to check my workings.

Those bastards! They'd let me believe Lula was really injured! They'd helped to wind me up so that I'd - what? Be more entertaining?

As soon as I clenched my fists, Ziggy scrambled to his feet and ran back into the main hall. Jackie zoomed towards the front door.

It didn't matter. The only question was which one I was going to murder first.