Out in the rain I had 7 defenders, a bag of cones, and over every man 2 numbers that nobody else on earth could see.
I hadn’t looked at one of them yet.
Back 4 on the edge of the box, Swarbrick right side of the middle 2, Blocky left of him, Kyle and Ash on the outsides, and Deano, Owen and Gaz waiting their turn behind the cone.
"Lommo," I called across the halfway line. "Send it through when you’re ready."
The notebook was already open in my hand, a little one with a soft red cover, 80p at the paper shop by the bus stop.
I stood on the edge of the 18-yard box, close enough to see hips and feet and where a man puts his eyes before the ball comes.
I wrote the date at the top of the first page and nothing else. Anybody watching from the far half would see a coach who liked writing things down. That was what I had bought it for.
"Coming," Lommo shouted. "Watch the middle."
He hit it low and flat between the 2 centre-halves, thup, and the 4 of them were supposed to slide after it into their diamond. One man out to meet the ball, one tucked in behind him in case he lost it, one across, and the far one dropping off to hold the back edge.
Except they didn’t. Blocky went to meet it. Swarbrick stayed. Nobody tucked in behind either of them, and the gap between Blocky and Swarbrick was wide enough to park Lommo’s Corsa in.
Owen and Gaz looked at each other, back behind the cone.
I saw them do it. They had done the same thing 10 minutes ago, while Lommo was telling the squad my name.
"Again," I said.
Over on the halfway line Stan had a tripod up as high as it would go, out on the touchline where it could see both ends at once.
"You filming this?"
"Every Monday and every Thursday, wherever they are." He screwed the camera onto the top of it, a tall white box with 2 lenses side by side in the front of it. "Veo. Club got it off a grant. It films the whole pitch on its own and puts it on the internet, and then nobody watches it."
"Somebody might."
"Aye, well." He gave the leg a kick to bed it in. "I’d sooner be stood on my own grass than this carpet. There’s a lad gets behind my far goal at Mill Lane and has a wee on my pitch, and when that camera comes home on a Saturday I’m going to have him."
The light on the front came on and stayed on.
Lommo put 4 more in and went back over the halfway line to his own lot. After that the balls came from whichever 2 of mine were waiting behind the cone.
Swarbrick stood at the front of everything, including the queue, so he went first.
He was slow side to side. When the ball switched from one side to the other, Swarbrick turned like a man turning a wardrobe on a narrow landing, one end and then the other.
And every time, he was already stood where the ball was going before it got there. He read it early and walked into the space instead of running to it.
"Told them a hundred times," he said, to nobody, when Blocky went the wrong way again.
"Leave it, Swarbs," Kyle said.
He didn’t leave it. He carried on under his breath, loud enough for Blocky to hear it.
His card had grown 2 rows at the bottom.
Name: Pete Swarbrick
Age: 34
Position: D (C) | Central Defender
Best Role: Central Defender ★☆☆☆☆
Standout: Anticipation 131
Decisions: 104
Composure: 122
With all the sighing and the eye-rolling and the knee strap, I had him down as brittle, the kind of senior pro who goes under the first time a 19-year-old runs at him. He wasn’t. The moaning was a habit, like a man who swears at the telly every night and never once gets up to change the channel.
At tier 7 that pair of numbers is a rock. The rest of them were leaning on it, and I hadn’t heard anybody say so.
He had come in his own gloves, black ones with the fingertips worn through, and between reps he stood with his weight on the right leg and worked the strapped knee with his thumb.
When the Corsa pulled in, the rest of them were stood by the goal in whatever coats they owned and half of them hadn’t got their shin pads on. He was already out on the grass in those gloves, on a bank holiday, in the rain.
I wrote Swarbs: moans, steady.
"Swarbs. You’re reading it before anybody else out here."
"Somebody has to." He put his glove on the back of his neck. "This lot watch the ball like it owes them money."
"So tell them."
"I do tell them."
"You tell them after." I came in a few steps. "When it’s gone past and there’s nothing anybody can do. Tell them before it’s kicked."
"Before it’s kicked." He grunted, which I took as a yes.
"You know where it’s going. You’ve just shown me 6 times. Say it out loud and 3 of them get there with you."
He looked at me through the drizzle for a good 4 seconds, long enough for it to get uncomfortable.
"Kyle," he said, without turning round. "Left shoulder. He’s coming inside you."
Kyle’s head snapped round. Deano went to come inside him with it, and Kyle got across early and put him out for a throw.
"That’s it," I said.
Swarbrick pulled his sleeves down. "It’s easier when you know."
Owen and Gaz had stopped looking at each other.
I moved on to the tall one, the one the rest called Deano. Dean Rigby, 24, a flat-top, and white dust still in the seams of his trainers.
Every time an attacker came at him, he dived in. He wasn’t shoved off it or beaten to it. He put himself on the floor at the first sign of trouble, and half the time Owen had stepped round him and gone before Deano’s hip hit the rubber crumb.
Name: Dean Rigby
Age: 24
Position: D (C) | Central Defender
Best Role: Stopper ?☆☆☆☆
Standout: Jumping Reach 126
Decisions: 25
Composure: 61
Out of 200. That was the diving, in one number. The 126 next to Jumping Reach explained the rest of it. He got his head on everything that came in.
"Deano. Over here."
He came over pulling his sleeves down over his wrists.
"You and Kyle," I said. "No pressure from anybody else, nobody covering. He starts 15 yards out and runs straight at you. You stay on your feet till I say."
"Till you say."
"Till I say."