T.J. and the Winning Goal
Read T.J. and the Winning Goal Online
Authors: Theo Walcott
Contents
Who is Parkview’s Star Striker?
About the Book
The Parkview team is off to compete in the Regional Championship Tournament, but their striker is in trouble.
The team is improving all the time, but Tulsi, once the star, is getting left behind.
When she’s dropped from both the school team and her Sunday League team, she even talks about giving up football.
Can TJ and his friends help Tulsi change her ways and win her place back in the team?
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FOR SEBASTIAN AND AURORA
S
QUAD
S
HEET
TJ
: A skilful forward with an outstanding turn of speed. He has an incredibly powerful shot, and he’s good in the air too.
Tulsi
: A strong, powerful striker. When she has the ball at her feet all she thinks about is scoring!
Rodrigo
: He’s from Portugal and he doesn’t speak much English, but he’s a wizard with a football in midfield or defence.
Rafi
: A midfielder who never stops running and tackling. His mazy runs are legendary and he always brings a ball to school!
Leila
: An excellent tackler and a natural holding midfielder.
Tommy
: When he’s not skateboarding he’s a fearsome tackler in Parkview’s defence.
Jamie
: Big, strong, fit – and the team’s keeper. He’ll stop anything heading towards him!
Danny
: He’s not popular, but he’s a terrific defender and Parkview can’t do without him.
Ariyan
: He can play anywhere and do a good job for the team. A really useful squad member.
Rob
: He can read the game and set up clever moves from the midfield. But can he control his nerves when he’s out on the pitch?
Ebony
: She has pace and a killer instinct for scoring goals. She’s fighting hard for a first-team place as a striker.
C
HAPTER
1
‘YOU CAME!’ SAID
Tulsi. ‘That’s great! Now you’ll really see something.’
‘Like what?’ asked TJ, smiling.
‘Like me scoring goals,’ replied Tulsi. ‘That’s what I do. I’m off to get changed. I’ll see you in a bit.’
Tulsi Patel was the striker in Parkview School’s football team. But long before Parkview School even
had
a team, Tulsi had been playing for Canby Road Girls in the Sunday League. She’d been trying to get her friends from Parkview to come and watch her play on a Sunday morning for ages.
Now, at last, they were here.
TJ was a speedy forward with a lethal shot who had only arrived at Parkview School at the beginning of the year. His friend Jamie, the spiky-haired, cheerful giant standing beside him, was the team’s goalkeeper. Scouts from Wanderers, the nearby Premier League club, had spotted TJ and Jamie playing for the school team, and now they both attended a Player Development Centre in the local Sports Centre every week. Their friends, Rafi and Rob, had come with them today. They all watched as Tulsi walked off to the dressing rooms in a low brick clubhouse at the side of the playing field.
‘What do you think?’ asked Jamie. ‘Will she play the same way she always does?’
‘Are you kidding?’ laughed Rafi, bouncing the football that he carried everywhere. ‘Tulsi’s always been the same, and I’ve been playing football with her
since
she was four years old.’
‘He’s right,’ agreed Rob. ‘I remember her when we were in the Reception class. She used to stand by the goal and scream at everyone to give her the ball.’
‘And I suppose you wrote that down,’ Jamie said, laughing.
‘No,’ replied Rob, who loved filling notebooks with statistics. ‘But I did a picture. I brought it with me. I knew you’d want to see.’
He pulled a notebook from his pocket. On the cover it said: TULSI MATCH STATS.
‘Hey,’ said Rafi. ‘Have you got one of those for all of us?’
Rob nodded sheepishly. ‘Information is important,’ he told them. ‘After all, one day someone might want to write the history of Parkview football team. Look, here’s Tulsi.’
He opened the notebook to reveal a crumpled, yellowing drawing of a face with
wild
, staring eyes and a mass of brown hair. Rob’s friends laughed. ‘That’s exactly what she used to be like,’ said Jamie.
‘Why is her face blue?’ asked TJ.
‘I was only four,’ replied Rob with a grin.
‘What are you all looking at?’ demanded Tulsi, running up to them in her training top and tracksuit bottoms.
‘Nothing,’ said Rob, snapping the notebook shut.
‘Hey, wait a minute. That’s my name on there. Let me see!’
She grabbed the book from Rob and opened it. ‘That’s you,’ said Jamie, as Tulsi
stared
at the screaming, blue-faced child. ‘You haven’t changed much, have you?’
‘Ha ha,’ said Tulsi, shoving Jamie away. ‘You should have been looking at my stats. Look at all these goals I’ve scored. You’d better get ready to add some more, Rob. We’re on that pitch over there. Kick off in ten minutes. We’re playing Norton Girls. If we beat them we’ll go top of the league.’
Tulsi ran off. The Canby Road playing field was on the edge of town. It was huge, and there seemed to be hundreds of people playing football, from the tiniest little kids on small pitches near the dressing rooms to full-scale grown-up matches on the pitches far away, near where the trees and fields of the countryside began.
‘Over there,’ said TJ, pointing, and they headed for the pitch where the two teams of girls were warming up. Both teams had brought plenty of supporters and they were
grouped
behind the tape on one side of the pitch. ‘There’s Tulsi’s mum,’ said Jamie. ‘Hello, Mrs Patel.’
‘Nice to see you boys,’ said Mrs Patel. ‘Would you like to share my umbrella?’
TJ realized that a drizzly rain had started to fall. ‘It’s OK, Mrs Patel,’ said Rob. ‘I’ve brought one.’ He unfurled an enormous multi-coloured golf umbrella. ‘Well?’ he said, when he saw his friends staring at him. ‘I don’t want my notebook to get wet, do I?’
‘Very sensible,’ laughed Mrs Patel. ‘Let’s hope it’s an exciting match. I think they’re about to start. COME ON, CANBY ROAD!’ she yelled, in an enormous voice that made them all jump. Tulsi looked over at them and grinned, as Norton kicked off.
‘Not bad,’ commented Rob after a few minutes. Canby Road were working hard and passing the ball well, but neither team had
managed
a shot on goal yet. ‘The girl with the curly red hair is good,’ Rob added appreciatively. ‘She must be Kira Jones, the captain. Tulsi told me about her. She hasn’t lost the ball once so far. Look at that!’
The red-haired girl was running Canby Road’s midfield, and now she turned cleverly away from the player who was marking her. Suddenly she had some space, and she had her head up, looking for a pass. Tulsi yelled for the ball. ‘Don’t do it,’ muttered Rob to himself. ‘There are too many defenders.’
TJ glanced at Rob, then back at the pitch. The midfielder had reached the same conclusion as Rob, and played the ball out to the wing. The Canby Road attack finally fizzled out. Then TJ and Rob saw Tulsi complaining to Kira Jones, who turned away.
‘I don’t know why she won’t pass to Tulsi,’ said Mrs Patel, when a few more minutes
had
passed and the end of the first half was approaching. ‘They used to pass to her all the time.’
‘It’s because she’s always marked very tightly,’ Rob said. ‘Tulsi’s been playing in this league for two years now. All the teams know what she does and they’ve worked out how to stop her. Look!’
A Canby Road player had finally played the ball to Tulsi, who was standing close to the edge of the Norton penalty area, just as she always did. She controlled the ball and turned to run past the defender who was marking her. ‘Go on, Tulsi!’ yelled TJ. The others were shouting too, and Tulsi’s mum was shouting louder than any of them. Tulsi beat the defender and pulled back her foot to shoot. But a second defender was there, blocking the shot and bringing the ball away to start another Norton attack.
The Canby Road supporters groaned.
When
the whistle blew for half time, neither team had scored, and Tulsi walked off the pitch shaking her head in disgust.