T.J. and the Cup Run (2 page)

‘He’s awful,’ Tulsi said darkly. ‘He’s been off sick for nearly a year. He was meant to
be
our teacher in September, but he never came back.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said TJ. ‘Mr Burrows told us when I came to see the school with my mum and dad. But then when I started Mr Wood was here. I just sort of thought he’d stay.’

‘So did we,’ Jamie said.

‘But Mr Potter can’t be that bad,’ said TJ, looking at the others. ‘Can he?’

‘He’s pretty bad,’ said Jamie. ‘But that’s not what matters. I mean, Mr Wood can’t just leave. We wouldn’t even
have
a football team if it wasn’t for him, or a football pitch.’

‘Well, I think Mr Wood’s right,’ said TJ. ‘We know what we have to do to be a good team. We’ve got good players. We’re in the semifinal of the Cup. No one can spoil that.’

‘I bet Mr Potter can,’ said Rob. ‘He’ll do things
his
way. He won’t listen to anything any of us say. You just wait and see.’

C
HAPTER
2

ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON
there was a special assembly in the school hall. Lots of parents came along to say goodbye to Mr Wood.

‘You’ve done a marvellous job,’ Mr Burrows told him as he shook his hand on the stage. ‘We can’t thank you enough. You’ve made a real difference to Parkview School, and we’re all very sorry to see you go.’

There was loud applause. TJ was almost sure that he saw a tear in the eye of Mrs Logan, the deputy head, and when they went back to the classroom and it was time
to
go home, some of the girls were definitely crying. They were all going to miss Mr Wood badly.

Monday arrived, and Mr Potter was waiting for them. He was tall and thin, with a straggly beard and glasses.

‘So,’ he began, ‘Mr Burrows tells me that we now have a school football team and there’s a training session arranged for tonight?’ There was a murmur of agreement. ‘Well, for the time being I’ll let the training carry on, but we don’t want to overdo it, do we? And now we need to get down to some proper work. Numeracy books out, please.’

‘But, Mr Potter,’ Tulsi said, raising her hand. ‘We’ve still got lots to do on our project. It’s all about football.’

‘Ah, yes. That.’ Mr Potter shook his head. ‘You really shouldn’t have been doing that at all,’ he said. ‘We must focus on Numeracy
and
Literacy. We have to stick to the basics. The really important things. We’ll keep football on the football field, if you don’t mind.’

It didn’t take TJ long to discover that his friends were right. Mr Potter was an extremely bad teacher. He was very, very boring, and it wasn’t long before some of the kids who’d tried really hard for Mr Wood started messing around. When they did that, Mr Potter shouted at them, and then carried on being boring. TJ just hoped that Mr Potter wasn’t equally bad as a football coach.

He wasn’t. He was worse.

They all assembled on the field after school. ‘Well?’ said Mr Potter. ‘What are you waiting for? Get yourselves organized and let’s see you play.’

‘But we haven’t warmed up,’ said Rob. ‘We always warm up.’

‘We haven’t got all night,’ said Mr Potter, as Miss Berry jogged across the tarmac
towards
them. ‘It’s not really a sensible time to be playing football. It’ll be dark in half an hour. Let’s just get on with it.’

‘Hi, Mr Potter,’ Miss Berry said brightly. ‘I’ve been helping out with the coaching. What would you like me to do?’

‘You can take that lot over there,’ Mr Potter said. ‘I’ll stand here and observe.’

TJ got together with his best friends and they all pulled on red training bibs. They’d all played together in the District Tournament a couple of weeks before. Jamie was in goal, Leila and Tommy in defence, Rafi and the Portuguese boy Rodrigo in midfield, and TJ and Tulsi up front. The team they were playing against had some good players too. There was Ariyan and Jay – they’d both been in the squad – and Cameron, and Leila’s friend Ebony.

And then there was Rob. When TJ had first met him Rob had refused to join in at
training
. He had always said he was useless, and sat at the side compiling lists of statistics. But Mr Wood had spotted that Rob knew a huge amount about football and he’d made him into a kind of assistant coach. Gradually, Rob had started joining in with the training sessions and TJ had watched his confidence growing. He smiled as he remembered the day a few weeks before when Rob had first appeared on the pitch without his glasses on. ‘You won’t be able to see the ball,’ Jamie had said.

‘I can see your ugly face,’ Rob had replied with a nervous grin, ‘so I think I’ll be OK!’

Rob pulled a blue bib over his head. TJ was looking forward to playing against him.

Miss Berry blew the whistle and the game began.

From the kickoff Tulsi tapped the ball back to Rafi and he hit a pass in behind the blue defenders for TJ to chase. It was a move
they
’d practised a lot. It was the same move, TJ realized, that they’d watched on TV when Paco Sanchez had hit a pass for Marshall to chase. And suddenly TJ knew how Marshall must have felt, because he couldn’t make his legs move fast enough. He should have been able to catch the ball, but it ran out of play before he could reach it.

As he jogged back into position Rob said, ‘Don’t sprint like that, TJ, not yet. We haven’t warmed up, have we?’

As soon as Rob said it, TJ knew he was right. He could feel the tightness in his muscles. He nodded to Rob. ‘We should all take it easy for a bit,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to get injured.’

They carried on playing. ‘It doesn’t seem right without Mr Wood,’ Tulsi said to TJ when they paused for a moment. ‘He’d be telling us what to do. Look at Mr Potter. He isn’t doing anything.’

On the other pitch an argument had broken out in front of the goal. ‘It was outside the area,’ the goalie, Matthew, was saying. ‘It was never a penalty.’

‘It was inside,’ shouted Carl.

Matthew grabbed the ball. ‘Try taking a stupid penalty now,’ he said.

Everyone began to shout at the same time. Carl managed to get hold of the ball and belted it high into the air. It came down in the road outside and bounced into a
garden
. Mr Potter blew his whistle. ‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen more than enough.’

‘We usually go on until four o’clock,’ Rob said.

Mr Potter looked at him. ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me about how you usually do things?’ he enquired.

‘Well, like I said, we always warm up,’ Rob began. Tulsi and Jamie both tried to catch his eye and stop him, but it was no good.

‘Then we usually do some sprints,’ Rob continued, ‘and individual ball skills work. Then we do drills—’

‘No, listen to me,’ Mr Potter interrupted. ‘I daresay you mean well, Rob, but I’m in charge now, and we’ll do things my way. It seems to me that you’re taking everything far too seriously. Football should be fun, especially at your age. You don’t need all these exercises. Just get out on the pitch and play. I always used to pretend I was
Bobby
Charlton.’ Mr Potter kicked at an imaginary ball. ‘Wham!’ he said. ‘In the back of the net.’

He lost his balance, stumbled, and sat down heavily on the grass.

C
HAPTER
3

‘IT CAN’T BE
as bad as all that,’ said TJ’s dad the following week, as he drove TJ and Jamie to the Wanderers Player Development Centre. TJ and his friend had both been invited to join the Player Development programme after their performances at the District Tournament. Tonight was their first session and they were both nervous. They’d been telling TJ’s dad about Mr Potter.

‘It is bad,’ said Jamie gloomily. ‘We had training again last night and he just let everyone do whatever they wanted. At least we warmed up this time, but it was only
for
a minute or two.’

‘And he’s a useless ref,’ added TJ. ‘He can’t keep up with the play and when he takes his glasses off, he can’t see properly. It’s not a joke.’

Mr Wilson shook his head. ‘It’s a real shame,’ he said. ‘But at least you’ll get some proper coaching tonight, lads. Right, out you get – we’re here.’

The Player Development sessions were held on the Astroturf pitch at the Sports Centre not far from where TJ lived. It was the same place where TJ and his friends came running with TJ’s dad, and Rob had come with them so that he could go for a run with Mr Wilson while they played. But even though TJ knew the place he still felt anxious, and he was very glad that Jamie was with him. ‘Don’t worry,’ Jamie said. ‘You’re actually good. I’m just a kind of accidental goalkeeper. I don’t even know
how
I do it. They’ll probably chuck me out when they see.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said TJ.

A small group of boys were already waiting on the pitch, and as they approached TJ realized that he already knew two of them.

There was Deng, the midfield player from Hillside School, and Leroy, the captain of Meadow Green School, who Parkview had played in the District Tournament. They both grinned as TJ and Jamie approached. A stocky young man walked towards them, smiling. ‘Hi, lads,’ he said. ‘Good to see you.’

Phil was a coach from the Wanderers Academy. It was Phil who had spotted TJ and Jamie. ‘I knew you were starting here tonight,’ he said, ‘so I came down to introduce you to the coaches, Derryn and Baz.’

Derryn was a tall, skinny black man. Baz
was
smaller with cropped blond hair and a tattoo of a snake on his neck. ‘OK,’ said Derryn. ‘There’s a few of you who are new tonight, so I’ll tell you a little about what happens. You geezers come down here every week and we give you some high-class coaching. Sometimes we arrange matches with teams from other towns, and sometimes we play against teams the same age as you from the Academy. That’s if you get selected, of course. And remember, you need to work hard. You only get to be a part of all this because we’ve invited you. There’s plenty of other boys waiting to take your place. Now let’s get warmed up.’

As TJ’s dad ran off with Rob along the Sports Centre’s running trail, the training began. TJ was amazed to find that everything felt familiar. Almost all of the activities were either exactly the same as things they’d done with Mr Wood, or very like them. Then,
with
only ten minutes left, Baz put them in teams to play five-a-side games, and TJ found himself on the same side as Deng for the first time.