Soccer Queen
by Andrew ( anr )
Chapter 11

David woke to the words "Wake up, sleepyhead," and a gentle shake on his shoulder by his mother. He stretched and swung himself out of bed, yawning.

In the bathroom, he found he needed to change the plaster between his legs. He hoped that it would stick today - he knew that he was going to be sweating heavily.

As he left the bathroom, Gail passed him going the other way. She was her usual morning self - half asleep and not terribly communicative. David interpreted the grunt she made as "good morning", and replied in kind. Gail just grunted again and entered the bathroom.

In the kitchen, his mother was preparing a full English breakfast, with bacon, sausage, eggs, tomato and fried bread. "You'll need the energy this morning," she told him.

Grateful for the filling breakfast, David replied with a cheery "Good morning. I see Gail's still the same first thing in the morning."

Gail was just entering the kitchen as he said this, and grunted a complaint. Their mother gave David a stern look, but merely said "Good morning, Gail. What do you want for breakfast ?"

A grunted reply from Gail that bacon and eggs looked good to her as well was all the response she received. Gail and David sat at the table drinking tea while the food was cooking.

After breakfast, a much more awake Gail ran off to get changed while David slipped into his Hibs strip. David carefully packed his football boots into a sports bag, adding a change of socks and a towel.

Everyone was ready by 9.30, when the doorbell rang. Samantha stood on the doorstep, dressed in her strip and carrying a sports bag of her own.

Mrs. McCall had agreed to drive them to the park, so they all climbed into her car. As they drove, David and Samantha changed into their football boots. Following Samantha's directions, they soon arrived at the training field.

On the field, a number of girls were running round warming up. Three women stood in the centre circle, a stack of footballs at their feet. They were all wearing green tops and white miniskirts, with sneakers on their feet.

As Samantha and David jumped out of the car, the woman in the centre blew a whistle. All the girls stopped what they were doing and ran to form a circle round her. Samantha and David joined them, coming up at the rear of everyone else.

"Good morning, girls, I am Coach Everrett and these are my assistants; Miss McDowell and Mrs. McReady. Welcome to the tryouts for the Gilroy Gazelles. I'm pleased to see so many of you returning from last year.

"For the first part of this morning, I want to see how fit you all are. We'll start by doing 5 laps of the field - and no cutting the corners! Off you go!"

She blew her whistle and all the girls ran to the edge of the field and turned to follow the marked pitch. They set an easy pace, knowing that this would be the start of a hard morning of exercises.

While she was talking, Gail and her mother walked to the corner where other mothers and siblings waited.

At a whistle and a shout of "Faster", everyone picked up the pace slightly. David contented himself with staying in the middle of the pack - he didn't want to tire himself out.

The run took fifteen minutes for most, though some were still finishing a good ten minutes later. The slowest of these were thanked for their participation and sent off to get changed.

With everyone standing round gasping for breath, Coach Everrett called for 50 sit-ups. To a chorus of groans, every- one lay on the ground and began the exercise.

While most could complete the required number of sit-ups in about 5 minutes, some were slower and some could not finish. Those who could not finish were again cut from the selection process.

The exercises and selection continued for an hour until there were only 30 girls left. One of whom was David, but he didn't think it diplomatic to mention that he was not a girl.

All the girls who already wore the green and white strip of the Gazelles were there, plus 14 girls in a variety of exercise clothes.

They were then split into two teams, with the current Gazelles facing the new girls. Coach Everrett then pulled a coin from her pocket and tossed for kick-off.

The toss was won by Samantha, and she elected for kick-off. David, acting as captain for the other side, elected to play into the sun for the first half.

Once the preliminaries were complete, David's concentration focused totally on the game. His spatial awareness expanded to allow him to track the position of every member of his team and their opponents.

At Coach Everrett's whistle, Samantha kicked off. She passed the ball to a team-mate and immediately accepted it back and began a run down the field. With the moves she had learned from David, she easily beat two tackles, only being stopped when she tried to pass three girls who were converging on her.

The ball bounced loose, and David eagerly intercepted it. He turned quickly and began racing up the field. The members of the team he was facing had more discipline than his own, so the attacks were co-ordinated. He easily beat the first three tackles, bur could not find an opening to swing infield.

He continued his run down the right wing, reversing himself at the corner to avoid another tackle. Passing the defender, he quickly glanced up to check everyone's position and floated a cross right to the head of his team-mate. She was quick enough to spot an opening in the defence and headed the ball at goal.

The Gazelle's goalkeeper made a frantic dive, just clipping the ball enough to knock it past the post for a corner. David collected the ball and placed it on the corner spot. Looking at the placement of attackers and defenders, he played a short ball to one of his team-mates, immediately calling for its return.

When he received it, he crossed the ball with deadly accuracy to one of his attackers. She saw the ball coming and positioned herself. With a powerful header, she scored the opening goal.

David's display of skill caused the coaches to observe him with appraising eyes. As the game progressed, they watched as he controlled the play on the right wing.

However, a team is more than one player and the greater discipline and familiarity of the existing Gazelles eventually broke through the defence of their opponents to equalise. The score remained 1-1 until half time, when everyone ran to talk to their mothers and fans.

David approached his mother and Gail, excitedly shouting "Did you see ? Did you see ?"

As his mother and Gail assured him they had, he ran to them for a hug. After releasing him, Mrs.McCall handed him an orange, which he gratefully accepted and began eating.

They chatted about his performance and the chances of his being selected. Gail assured him that he was easily the best player on the park and would soon be a member of the Gazelles along with Samantha.

Gail was proud of her brother's skill. She wished she could play half as well, but the games with him and Samantha had shown her that her skills lay elsewhere.

The teams were then pulled back to the centre by the whistle of Coach Everrett. As David placed the ball for the kick-off, he looked at Samantha. She was watching him with a proud and happy expression on her face. She just knew he would be on the team now.

This exchange was not missed by Coach Everrett, who thought that having two girls who were already friends on her team could only be a good thing.

At the whistle, David passed to the girl who was playing centre-forward for his team. David started running to the right wing as she placed a pass in his path. David picked up the ball and started another of his blistering runs down the wing.

The Gazelles had learned to respect the skill of this new girl and had assigned Samantha to marking him. The two friends engaged in a battle of wills and skill, which on this occasion David won as he sent another cross toward the centre of the goal mouth.

This time it was intercepted by one of the Gazelle's defenders and kicked back upfield. The Gazelle's advanced toward their opponents goal like a tide. When the cross came over, Samantha was in the right position to score with a spectacular overhead kick.

David watched his friend with amazement and applauded her as she lay on the ground. He ran up and helped her to her feet before she was swept away by her ecstatic team-mates.

The score remained at 2-1 for the Gazelles throughout a fiercely played second half, with most of the play in the centre of the park. As the final whistle approached, David found a loose ball and started his run up the right.

This time, he spotted an opening in the Gazelles defences and swerved to the left and continued down the centre of the field. As he approached the penalty box, Samantha made a desperate sliding tackle that missed the ball, but hit David's leg.

On hearing the Coach whistle for a penalty, Samantha hung her head in shame. She walked over to David to make sure that she hadn't injured him. Samantha accepted the booking the Coach gave her as just punishment.

Fortunately, he was only slightly bruised, and forgave his friend immediately. He elected to take the kick himself and ran round for a while to loosen his leg.

Placing the ball carefully on the spot, he backed up to the edge of the area and looked at the top left hand corner of the goal. After a short run he slotted the ball into the bottom right of the goal as the Gazelle's goalkeeper dived to the left.

As the whistle for full-time sounded, all the girls agreed it had been a hard but fair contest. The number of fouls was low and no-one had been sent off. Only Samantha had been booked, and that for a desperation tackle in the dying seconds of the game.

The coach and her assistants went into a huddle and discussed the game and players. They all agreed that Samantha's foul at the end had been accidental, but she should miss the first game as punishment.

Then they discussed the players, both old and new. They had noticed that some of their existing players did not seem as committed as they had before, and decided to replace them with new players.

When they had decided on who was in and who was out, Coach Everrett blew her whistle again. All the girls had remained on the pitch to hear the results.

As the list of names was read, there were groans from the players who had not made it. Those who had been dropped burst into tears and ran off the field. Those selected remained to hear the Coach's parting words.

"Thank you for coming, girls, you are the best players in the town. Davina McCall, I was especially impressed with your ball control skill. Where did you learn to play like that ?"

"Thank you, Coach. Last year I played on my school team back in Edinburgh, and we won the Edinburgh Schools Cup and the Scottish Schools League."

The Coach was puzzled - she thought that these were competitions for boy's teams. She dismissed her concerns, though, at the prospect of getting a player like Davina.

She returned to her farewell talk. "Training sessions will be at this time every Saturday, with matches generally taking place on Sunday at 4.00 p.m.

"Samantha Davis, you are a good player. You don't have to resort to the kind of play exemplified by your last tackle. As punishment, you will face a one-week suspension from the team. However, you are expected to attend training next week along with everyone else.

"Again, thank you for coming, and I'll see you all next week."

The girls separated and walked over to their parents. David and Samantha joined Gail and her mother, chatting happily about the game they had just played.

"I'm in! I'm in!" shouted David as they approached.

Gail squealed and ran to hug her sister/brother but gave Samantha a dirty look. "That kind of tackle has been outlawed by FIFA," was all she said.

Samantha just hung her head, but was comforted by David's hug. She looked up gratefully and rubbed the top of David's head.

As he batted her hand away, Samantha got a mischievous look in her eye. "Of course, Coach'll expect you to have the correct strip next week," she commented.

David groaned at the thought of another expedition to the mall. *Just what I need,* he thought, *more clothes shopping.*

More Soccer Queen Coming Soon!