Striker Boy Kicks Out (24 page)

Back in the changing room, the Wildman started shouting out encouragement.

“We can do this!” he roared, to great yells of approval.

Nat stole a glance at Nicky Sinclair. He'd played in a couple of big games for Aberdeen, but by the look on his face, he was really feeling the pressure of this occasion. His eyes were nervously darting round the room, his body was trembling slightly. Stan Evans saw this too and went over to calm him down. Nat still resented the fact that Fox had gone for Nicky ahead of him, but having heard the boss's rationale behind this, he understood why he'd done it. Maybe he was right. Maybe Tieras would put everything into the match for a while and then lose some of that edge – allowing Fox to send Nat on.

“OK, lads!” shouted Evans, when a Talorca official poked his head round the changing room door and said it was time to move.

The Rangers players shouted to create some positive energy, and emptied out into the tunnel. As usual, Nat hung back with the substitutes. When Talorca FC spilled out, Nat saw that Tieras wasn't with them. Was he injured? Had he been dropped? Nat then spotted their manager, a flamboyant man by the name of Romero Velasquez, go up to Ian Fox and give him a warm handshake. Velasquez hadn't been a great player – he was a bit of a journeyman
left-back – but as a manager he'd won La Liga with Sevilla a couple of seasons back and was brimming with confidence. Nat spotted Talorca's playmaker Lombardo up ahead. He was crossing himself and mumbling under his breath.

The sound of the crowd was muted by the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, but it was still very loud. As the referee and his three assistants arrived, Nat saw Tieras emerge from the Talorca changing room and take his place at the head of their line. Tieras turned round, and for a second his and Nat's eyes met. Tieras gave a smug grin. Nat stared back, his body full of loathing.

The referee nodded at his three assistants and they began the walk outside. As the teams emerged into the gleaming floodlights, the noise rose to an almost deafening volume. It made the hairs on the back of Nat's neck stand up. It was a cauldron – bubbling and frothing with passion and soul. The entire stadium was covered in Talorca flags, scarves and banners, and these were joined by huge Spanish flags and placards in Spanish.

Nat spotted the tiny contingent of Hatton Rangers fans, penned into a section of a stand on the far left, doing their very best, but not standing a chance against the overpowering vocal chords of 60,000 home fans.

“This is incredible!” Kelvin shouted at Nat.

The Talorca players were waving to each section of the stadium to acknowledge their devoted following. Nat strolled over to the bench while the two teams stretched alongside each other in two horizontal lines. Victor Mabena
and several other dignitaries walked over to shake hands with Tieras. The Talorca captain introduced Mabena and crew to his players. It was then the turn of the Wildman to press flesh with Mabena and the dignitaries before introducing them to the Rangers players. This done, the two teams shook each other's hands and sprinted off, Talorca to the home end, Rangers to the away end – which was like another home end because it was so jam-packed with Talorca fans.

The Rangers players were met by a huge wall of sound – a cascading outpouring of boos. They did their best to ignore it, but it was loud and hostile, and it would take a robot to be able to fully block it out.

The game hadn't started, but Ian Fox was already at the far edge of his technical area, screaming out instructions to his players.

“Kelvin, look out for Raymond Hilva, he looks like he's back to full fitness!”

Hilva was their bulky centre-forward. He was fast and very agile.

“Clarke, don't stray too far from Jensen!”

The Rangers manager was wringing his hands together and looking as if he was letting his players loose in the world's most dangerous combat zone.

“Adilson, don't forget the first free kick!” yelled Stan Evans.

Nat studied Alberto Tieras. Even though he was further away from Nat than he'd been at the radio studio, he actually looked bigger out on the pitch. He was a massive
brute of a man – someone who had unshakeable belief in himself and his own powers, particularly here, in his home stadium. The Talorca supporters shared this belief. Tieras was their talisman, the man who won games by his single-mindedness. He played the same sort of role as the Wildman did for Rangers. Every team needed someone like that – a fearless player, who would put his head where others wouldn't put their feet.

Nat felt his own feet jiggling up and down with nerves.

The referee checked with his assistants, looked at his watch and blew his whistle.

Talorca had kick off and the Rangers players were shocked at the instant aggressive force of their opponents' attack. Inside the first minute. Talorca could have scored. Hilva's shot swept just over the bar of Graham Dalston's goal. This acted as a severe warning, but Rangers could hardly get hold of the ball. It was all Talorca, and before ten minutes were up, they'd forced two superb saves from Dalston and hit the post.

Ian Fox was apoplectic, shrieking at his players to get the ball, keep it on the ground and
retain
it. But however hard the Hatton Rangers players tried, Talorca enjoyed the lion's share of possession. It was as though they were taunting Rangers.

And then, in the fifteenth minute, Adilson wrestled the ball from their right-sided midfielder Andres Luerta, and ran down the left touchline. He cut in and feigned shooting, before sliding the ball to Nicky Sinclair. Sinclair was right on the cusp of the penalty area and he'd just controlled the ball when he was hacked down by Tieras.

“PENALTY!” screamed every person in the stadium
who was connected to Hatton Rangers. The Rangers players swarmed over to the referee. It was a textbook foul. A penalty and a booking had to be the immediate response. But the referee disagreed with all of them and gave Rangers a free kick on the edge of the penalty area. And his yellow card stayed inside his pocket.

“You must be joking!” shrieked Ian Fox in rage. “It was a clear penalty!”

The referee was unmoved by any of the protests and ushered the Rangers players away. Nat shook his head in disbelief and watched Adilson place the ball and then hold a brief discussion with Jermaine Clifton. This was Rangers's first free kick. They were going to follow Fox's precise instructions.

Nat was totally caught in the moment. Would Adilson and Jermaine Clifton deliver? Adilson stood over the ball. Clifton took up a position just inside the penalty area, as Fox had instructed, to Adilson's right. Xavier Bergas in the Talorca goal was yelling at his players, who were forming a defensive wall. Jensen, Clarke and Nicky Sinclair were also doing as Fox had told them. They were jostling, pushing and barging into the Talorca wall, causing the Talorca players all sorts of trouble. Tieras was screaming at the Hatton Rangers trio of interlopers, but they ignored him and maximised their interference with Talorca's defensive plans.

Nat smiled.
Put it away, Jermaine!

The Talorca left-back Henry Paret spotted Clifton, hesitated for a moment and then started running over to
mark him. Nat tensed, but Tieras shouted at Paret to come back and make up the numbers in the wall.

Jermaine Clifton was on his own – just like the gaffer had said he'd be.

Adilson took about ten steps back to increase the impression that he was going to smack the ball high and hard into the box. Bergas was squinting to check his wall was in the optimum position. Tieras was clapping his hands and shouting at his teammates. As soon as the referee blew, Adilson ran speedily towards the ball and for a moment it looked like he really was going to smash it in.

It was a brilliant piece of football theatre. As his foot connected with the ball, the Talorca players in the wall jumped to intercept his rocket, but were stunned mid-jump to see Adilson hit it straight along the ground to Clifton.

Clifton hit it first time – a beautiful, powerful bullet that curved right round the wall and hurtled goalwards. Bergas was unsighted, but instinct forced him to leap. He flew across his goal as the ball smashed towards the net. His fingertips just managed to reach it and push it round the post for a corner.

No!

Ian Fox and Stan Evans were on their feet, convinced the ball was going in, and both threw their arms up in frustration when Bergas saved it. It wasn't a goal, but the Rangers players had followed Ian Fox's instructions to the letter, and Nat could see that, despite his disappointment, the boss was pleased with them.

Tieras was shrieking at his players for letting Jermaine Clifton in, forgetting it was
him
who'd ordered Paret not to mark Clifton. In the next five minutes, Talorca mounted two good attacks, one ending with a very good dive, parry and then catch by Dalston.

On twenty minutes, Nicky Sinclair picked up the ball just inside the Rangers half. Even though Robbie Clarke was yelling for the ball on the right wing, Sinclair went for the more cautious option and passed the ball back in the direction of the Wildman. But he didn't get enough power on the ball and it trickled well short of the Rangers captain. The Wildman instantly spotted the mistake and made a dash for the ball, but Lombardo was faster and he sprinted in, took the ball round the Wildman and released Raymond Hilva. Hilva sold a dummy to the onrushing Kelvin, rounded Dalston and smacked the ball home.

One-nil to Talorca.

Nicky Sinclair's mistake had been a schoolboy one and he sank to his knees, head in hands. It wasn't even the halfway point of the first half yet, but he realised his slip might have just cost Hatton Rangers their first ever trophy.

The Wildman ran straight over to Sinclair, pulled him to his feet and put an arm round his shoulders. Sinclair's eyes were red and watery. Nat looked sideways and saw Ian Fox and Stan Evans staring at Sinclair with disbelief. Graham Dalston angrily fetched the ball from his net and booted it back to the halfway line. Adilson trapped it and placed it on the centre circle, ready for kick off. On the
whistle, he passed it to Sacrois who fed it on to Sinclair. But Sinclair panicked and whacked the ball up-field and into touch.

Ian Fox was instantly on his feet.

“Get your tracksuit off!” he commanded at Nat. “I can't leave Sinclair on!”

The match was twenty-two minutes old.

I'm coming on in the first half for the first time!

Nat felt terrible for Nicky, but this was his chance to grab a much larger slice of a game than he'd ever expected, and he wasn't going to waste it. His tracksuit top and trousers were off in a second and he was stretching and jumping on the touchline. Fox quickly notified the fourth official who nodded and started tapping the info into his scoreboard.

“It's going to be very tough for Nicky,” Stan Evans shouted at Nat, “but we can't leave him out there. It will only make things worse. We don't want to get into a situation where he keeps on making mistakes. Our fans will start booing him and that's a very hard thing to recover from. Nat, you're to play on the right, tucking in just behind Jensen, OK?”

Nat nodded and took another couple of jumps. It was time to see if Tieras would make good his promise to put Nat on a stretcher. Part of Nat felt a deep, cold fear. After all, Tieras was a monster of a man. But another part of him relished the challenge. Tieras had used his mouth to attack Rangers and him personally over the course of the last few days, but it was what happened out on the pitch
that counted, and Nat was going to bust every sinew he possessed to get one over on the Talorca captain.

“Look out for Tieras,” said Ian Fox, the mind-reader, placing a hand on Nat's back. “But remember, everyone is watching him and if he crosses the line we'll all be on to him. You're quicker than him, you're cleverer than him. We're not expecting you to carry all of our hopes on your shoulders but we know what you can do.”

On the pitch, Adilson hit a long, raking pass towards Robbie Clarke. But he over-hit and it went out on the far touchline. The fourth official immediately held up his board. Nicky Sinclair saw his number and his face crumpled. On the basis of the way he was playing, it made sense to withdraw him but it didn't stop him feeling totally crushed. He shuffled dejectedly off the pitch like someone sixty years his senior. When he reached the touchline, he shook Nat's hand and mouthed, “Good luck,” before going straight into the tunnel.

The fourth assistant checked Nat's boots and he was on.

Coming on as a substitute against Manchester United had been utterly incredible, but somehow this felt like a bigger occasion because of the silverware available – the thing every fan dreamed about.

Nat ran straight into position – on the right, playing behind Dennis Jensen, with Robbie Clarke performing the same role on the left. Within three minutes of being on, Nat combined well with Clarke and hit the ball to Adilson, who smashed in a volley that just missed the bar.
Tieras was furious with his defenders for letting Adilson through and yelled at them, presumably ordering them to go on the offensive, because what happened next was more like Tieras's battlefield than a game of football. With the exception of Tieras, every Talorca player rushed forwards, determined that by sheer numbers alone they'd bag a goal.