We ran it 6 times. On the third one I caught myself nodding at my own notebook.
His tackles were clean. He put his foot straight through the ball, crack, Kyle stayed upright, and the ball went 30 yards into the mesh. Nothing wrong with the tackle at all.
The problem was when. He went half a second before the ball was there to be taken.
"I got it, didn’t I?" he said after the fifth, breathing out of his mouth.
"You got it late. Then you got it early." I let that sit. "Get it on time and you’ll get it every week."
He stood there with his ears going red under the flat-top.
"You don’t have to win it straight away," I said. "Make him go where you want him first. Then take it."
"Where do I want him?"
"Outside. Towards the line."
"What’s outside doing for me?"
"The touchline is your mate. It defends for you. He runs out of pitch and he’s got to give it back, and you’ve not had to tackle anybody."
Somebody taught me that on the car park at Beck Road when I was 15, walking backwards with his hands behind his back to prove he had no need of them.
He looked at the white paint by his own boot like it had turned up uninvited.
"So I don’t go."
"You go when he’s out there and he’s slowed down. You’ll know. Your body’ll tell you before your head does."
Sixth one, he turned side on instead of square, and he did not go. He walked Kyle out towards the line, showed him the paint, and when Kyle ran out of grass and had to put his foot on the ball, Deano took it off him and hooked it clear.
"Like that?"
"Like that. Now do it with 500 in on a Saturday shouting at you."
"500," he said. "We get 200 if it’s not raining."
"Then 200 shouting at you."
He wiped his hands down the front of his shorts and left 2 white streaks on them.
"What’s that?"
"Flour. I’m on nights at the bakery, in at 2, out at 10." He looked at the streaks. "It gets everywhere. My missus has given up."
He put his hands behind his back without noticing he was doing it.
"Swarbs says I’m a liability," he said. "He’s said it since I were 19."
"You’re not a liability," I said. "You’re early."
15 yards away, the other centre-half had been getting it wrong in the other direction.
Jordan Bloxham, 19, one of the 2 new lads Lommo had pulled out of the Sunday league. Wide through the shoulders, quiet, and Swarbrick called him Blocky because he looked like he had been cut out of an oak fence post.
He stood off his man a yard and a half. Plenty of room to turn and have a look up, and by the time Blocky got there the ball had gone.
Name: Jordan Bloxham
Age: 19
Position: D (C) | Central Defender
Best Role: Central Defender ?☆☆☆☆
Standout: Strength 118
Decisions: 38
Composure: 55
118 of strength, and he was using it to stand politely out of the way.
I stepped onto the turf and got side on to show him where his feet went. The knee I cut on the coffee table on Saturday didn’t like the crouch.
"Touch tight, Blocky. Close enough to feel him. Tighter than that. You’re not waiting for a bus."
He shuffled in a foot and stopped, and his shoulders came up round his ears. "He’ll turn me if I’m that tight, boss."
Nobody had ever called me boss in my life. I let it go past me.
"He’s turning you now from a yard away. At least if you can feel him, you’ll know he’s going before he goes. His hip moves first. It always moves first."
"And when he goes anyway?"
"Then he’s gone past you with you on his shoulder instead of 2 yards behind him, and you’re still in the game."
He had a good 3 inches on me and hands to go with it, and he was looking at them.
"Refs give it," he said. "Every time. 9 penalties I give away in 2 seasons in the Sunday league, boss, and 6 of them weren’t fouls."
"Who says they weren’t?"
"Our lot." A pause. "They would, though."
I stepped in until my chest was on his arm and he had to shift his weight to keep me off him.
"Feel that? That’s me leaning on you and there’s nothing in it for a referee. Feet and chest do the work. Arms out and low where he can see both of them, and you never put a hand in a man’s back. Then when he goes down, he’s gone down on nothing, in front of everybody."
"And if he gives it?"
"Then he’s given a penalty against a lad who did nothing, and I’ll be the one on the touchline shouting about it. Not you."
Deano went too soon and Blocky never went at all, and Swarbrick knew about both of them before either of them moved.
"Blocky, in," Swarbrick called. "He’s coming. In, in."
Blocky went in. He got a shoulder in with both hands out where anybody could see them, and Gaz put his foot on the ball and went backwards instead of forwards.
Scratch, scratch. I wrote Swarbs talks, Blocky moves. Keep them 10 yards apart.
The right-backs came next. 3 of them, sharing the same 4 cones. One shirt.
Kyle Fenton was the quick one, 22, white tape round both wrists and a pair of yellow boots you could see from the car park.
Lommo had this bit on his sheet as a shadow press. There was no other team on our half to win it off, so we did it on a shout: Swarbrick called now, and the ball was ours.
Every time the shout went up, Kyle was gone, 30 yards up the line like a winger, his yellow boots skidding as he turned on a sixpence.
And every time we gave it back, the grass behind him had nobody in it. He got back every time I shouted, a yard after the ball did.
"Kyle. Where’s your channel?"
"Coming!"
"It’s already gone."
"Sorry, Matt. I thought we had it."
"You thought." He came trotting back with his hands on his hips.
"That grass behind you is your channel. Nobody else on this pitch is coming for it, so it’s yours whether you’re in it or not. Look first. Is it safe? Then go. Go before it’s safe and you’re not a wing-back, you’re a spectator with good legs."
Somebody laughed at that. Kyle grinned at the floor, went back to his cone, and then stopped and turned round.
"I played wing till I was 18," he said. "Left, right, whichever one they’d have me on."
"Who moved you back?"
"Fella at my last club. Said I’d get more games at right-back."
"Did you?"
"I got more games." He looked back up the empty line he had just finished running. "Never got the ball, though."
"You’ll get the ball off me," I said. "Be where I can find you when I look up, and you’ll get more of it than you can carry. Go early and you get nothing, because by then I’ll have given it to Swarbs."
"Swarbs doesn’t run."
"Swarbs doesn’t have to. That’s what he’s for."
Name: Kyle Fenton
Age: 22
Position: D (R) | Right Back
Best Role: Wing-Back ?☆☆☆☆
Standout: Acceleration 133
Decisions: 66
Composure: 70
His legs were 133, and 66 is a fair number for a full-back at this level. What he hadn’t got was a clock. Clocks I can do.
***
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