I looked around me, people were pointing at me and I could definitely hear ‘who the hell is that kid?’ from behind me and then I stifled another nervous giggle when I heard a high pitched voice say, ‘Daddy, why can’t I sit in the dugout like that boy?’

Football Girl

By Susan Brown

Chapter 8

Previously...

‘Right, son, here’s your kit. Get changed as quickly as you can.’

In a bit of a daze, I took off my track suit and changed into the Melchester kit. As I did up the laces of my boots, I kept on fluffing it and in the end, Bill did it for me.

‘Bit  “Roy of The Rovers” this, init?’ said Bill.

‘Who?’ I replied distractedly.

‘Before your time, I ’spect. Okay, that’s your boots. Better put your track suit back on, it can be bloody cold sitting in the dugout’

I was on auto pilot as I finished dressing and then was led out of the dressing room, up the tunnel and into the dugout. The noise was deafening and I could see a lot of fans staring at me, wondering who the hell this young, small kid was. Was I a mascot? I could almost hear the cogs in their brains whirring. I imagined that sixty thousand people in the stadium were all looking at me, not to mention the millions who watched the match on their TVs. I saw Jeff sitting a few rows back, his jaw had dropped and he looked a bit like a fish. It must have been nerves, but I nearly giggled then, but professional footballers don’t giggle, do they?

And now the story continues.

I looked around me, people were pointing at me and I could definitely hear ‘who the hell is that kid?’ from behind me and then I stifled another nervous giggle when I heard a high pitched voice say, ‘Daddy, why can’t I sit in the dugout like that boy?’

I was brought back to reality when I heard a voice coming from my right. Looking up as I was spoken to, I could see the craggy line face of The Boss looking down at me. He didn’t look pleased..

‘What the hell are you doing here? Can’t yer see the other players warming up on the pitch? Get out there and do some warm ups and kick a ball around. Yer need to get a feel for the pitch.’

I was out of there like a scalded cat and I found myself walking on the hallowed turf. Feeling the weight of the obvious stares kind of slightly freaked me out and I remembered that I had once as a treat, been here on one of those stadium tours. Some officials showed us around the place. The last thing we did was to go pitch side. There were notices in front of us saying that we would be ejected if we dared put a foot on the pitch.

Yet here I was, running on the pitch and I wasn’t getting chucked out for doing it!

I went over to the right where our players were warming up. The captain for the day, Petre Ogsood came over.

‘Hi, Mark,’ he said, his voice warm, ‘I bet you’re surprised to be here?

‘Just a bit,’ I replied with a nervous smile.

‘Well the boss told us that you were to be a sub today, due to the injuries. You’ve played with one or two of the lads and they know you’re good. So just enjoy it as I doubt if you’ll be called in to play; okay?’

I just nodded and he kicked a ball to me.

Soon I was warming up, kicking balls to the other players, generally working up a sweat and shooting the ball towards the goal. I sliced a practice shot and it ended up by the corner flag, so I wasn’t obviously showing any talent!

A couple of the players said ‘hello,’ and others just patted me on the back as we continued the warm up. Everyone was being nice and I tried to ignore the fact that 60,000 people were watching me and probably millions of others on the TV too–easy–not!

A few minutes later, I was back in the dugout with the other reserves, wiping my face with a towel and drinking water out of a bottle. I was glad to be out of the limelight and back in the relative safety of the dugout. I looked behind me and saw Jeff. He put up his thumb and had a great big grin on his face. I think that he was enjoying this a lot more than me! I was just glad that it was highly unlikely that I would be used–being so green and new–I was just here to make up the numbers, obviously.

There was a roar from the crowd as the two teams came out onto the pitch, side by side. Each player was holding the hand of a young supporter as they went onto the pitch. After lining up at the centre circle, Petre, our captain followed by the rest of our players shook the hands of the Teddenham team.

As that was going on, the announcer was naming each member of our team to the roar of the crowd as the players was named. He then went through the reserves and all of the names were greeted with roars of approval. To my horror I heard ‘Mark Hurst.’ And I heard a muted cheer and a lot of ‘Who?’ like noises. It wasn’t exactly giving my confidence a boost!

On each side of me were two other reserves, the keeper Ivan Gloshter, Mike Philber, to the left and Daniel Schmitt, and the Brazilian, Lepe to the right. With smiles, nods of welcome and stinging slaps on the back, I was welcomed to the squad bench.

There was a slight hush and then the whistle went.

You couldn’t say it was pretty; Teddenham had come for a draw or so that seemed to me as they packed their defence and barely made their way past the half way line for the first twenty minutes.

We were all over them like a rash and had several shots, both on and off target. Then Mike Turner, one of our best midfielders was chopped down by Smith, a Teddenham fullback with a reputation for being a nasty piece of work. How he wasn’t sent off, I’ll never know but he just got a yellow card.

The Boss was on his feet with the rest of the management team and all us reserves, screaming at the ref, linesmen, league officials and everyone else about the decision not to send off Smith.

Our physio, who happened to be the club doctor, rushed on and it was clear, after a few minutes that we had yet another serious injury. On top of that, another of our players, left back Nigerian international, Desmond Etoo was limping badly.

In a few moments, there were only three subs left on the bench, Daniel Schmitt, the goal keeper Ivan Gloshter and little me! I was getting a bad feeling about this.

The game continued and we had more than enough chances to put the game out of the reach of the defensive Teddenham.

Then it happened. We had a corner; both teams packed the goal area, the ball came sailing through a sea of players and their centre half climbed up the back of one of our players, an obvious foul ignored by the ref, and headed it out towards the centre circle. It just happened to land at the feet of the only Teddenham player who was up field–it was the league’s top scorer Owen Michaels. He raced up the field with players from both teams chasing after him. Our keeper threw himself at the ball just inside the penalty area, somehow got his arms on the ball and one of Michael’s legs.

‘PENALTY!’ shouted the Teddenham team and their 10,000 supporters. Michaels was making a meal of it by writhing about on the ground as though he had a fatal injury.

‘********’ and other choice words were shouted by everyone else except me, cos I’m nice and don’t use that sort of language.

It was inevitable that our keeper would be given a red card and Ivan Gloshter was sent on in his place.

Michaels then made a “miraculous” recovery, grabbed the ball and placed it on the penalty spot. I couldn’t look as he took the penalty. Ivan hadn’t had a chance to warm up and against the deadliest striker in the league, he had no chance.

So, we were 1-0 down and with only ten men on the pitch. I looked at Daniel Schmitt and he just shook his head. We both knew that this was going to be a long hard afternoon.

Teddenham did the inevitable, and didn’t bother having anyone up field. They had their goal and they were going to keep up the advantage by not giving anything away. The game went to half time with no change in the score. We tried our best to pierce their defence, but apart from a few off-target shots, we were not able to make much impression. The crowd was restless and I heard a few ‘wot a load of rubbish,’ chants coming from some of our so-called fans.

Half time came and went and after an ineffectual fifteen minutes, the boss put Schmitt on the pitch. I was kind of glad it wasn’t me, as I knew I would make a fool of myself. I just felt like going home, putting on my best nightie and going to bed with my cuddly rabbit–some professional footballer I make!

Then they scored.

We had been pressing hard up in the final third of the field and we were caught by another breakaway. This time Michaels passed the ball to his partner in crime, Godalot, the Rumanian international, who after three years playing for Teddenham, still couldn’t speak more than a couple of words of English. He let his football do the talking as Michaels managed to flight a ball directly to his head and the ball went sailing over poor Gloshter’s head and into the net.

The Teddenham crowd went mad and our supporters chanted a few choice words back at them about parentage and stuff like that.

Mr McPherson came over to me and shouted, ‘Go run up and down the pitch a bit. You have two minutes.’

‘Me?’ I said; my mouth dropping through the floor.

‘Yes you; get going.’

‘I’m only 15.’

‘I don’t care if you’re six and a half, get out there!’

‘Shit.’ I thought, forgetting how nice I was for once.

I got out of the dugout and ran up and down the side line, I stretched as much as I could and was lucky in that I wasn’t too knotted up. As I passed the dugout for the third time, I was called in and I took off my trackies. All the time, the Boss was giving me instructions as to how and where I should play. Somehow, I didn’t seem to take in all what he was saying as I had a severe case of nerves.

Soon I was on the pitch and replacing one of our players, I hadn’t a clue who he was at that point as I was too taken up with stage fright to notice. I was still kind of hoping that this was a nightmare and that I’d wake up any minute tucked up in my bed , sighing with relief that it wasn’t real. It was okay talking about playing at the highest level, but the reality of it was terrifying.

Pulling myself together, I vaguely remembered where I was supposed to play, midfield on the right hand side–I was to get the ball as much as possible and make a bit of mischief–some hope of that!

It was strange standing on the pitch with the game going on around me. It was unreal, the stuff of nightmares if it went wrong.

The ball came to me, I hesitated and it was whipped away from me and I was shoved over as well. The whistle went and I had the ball. Somehow all the team apart from the goalkeeper was up around the box and I was expected to do something. Why the hell was I given the ball?

Smith, the Teddenham player who fouled me came up to me.

‘Go home to mummy, son and leave the game to the big boys.’

He smirked at his own subtle joke and ran off toward the goal.

Now I didn’t like that ’cause it wasn’t friendly. I was annoyed to say the least and that annoyance helped me to almost forget where I was and the fact that I was the centre of attention.

Placing the ball carefully on the pitch, I looked up briefly and then decided to aim for the near post, not the far one where everyone expected it to go. I could see Peter Martins, one of our forwards was lurking over on that side and he didn’t look very well marked. I kicked the ball and prayed that it would go where I wanted. The crowd was strangely quiet as it went straight as an arrow towards Peter. I had miscalculated slightly as the ball swerved towards the goal at the last second and it hit the crossbar, coming out to Peter who hit it sweetly on the volley. The goalie had little chance as the ball just missed his fingertips as he dived desperately to his left.

GOAL!

In seconds, I was surrounded by players who nearly knocked me out in the excitement, but we didn’t have too much time for kissing and cuddling as we had less than ten minutes to play.

After the goal, I settled down. It was as if a safety valve had released my worries and emotions and I actually started to enjoy myself and not get too hung up on who was watching me.

We kept pressing and Teddenham was on the back foot. They got desperate and brought one of our players down resulting in a penalty that our captain converted.

It was now 2-2 with less than four minutes to play plus extra time.

It was getting brutal as several of our players, including me were brought down, resulting in three yellows for Teddenham and one for Ogsood for retaliation.

I was passed the ball near the centre spot and managed to jink through several players before shooting hard at the goal. It was only a fantastic save by the keeper that stopped me scoring. I could hear the groans from our supporters and the cheers from the Teddenham mob at that wonderful save.

Ogsood came over and shouted in my ear.

‘Hear them?’

For a second I wasn’t sure what he was saying then I heard the crowd.

‘Markey —Markey Hurst.’

I went all goose bump like over that and I’m sure that my face must have been as red as the flapping corner flags. But there was no time for all that as the game went on at a furious pace.

We had three corners in as many minutes, none of them giving us the goal we so desperately needed and then the ninety minutes were up. There was just two minutes of extra time to play. We were playing well and Teddenham were hanging on for dear life, trying to protect the one point that they expected to get for drawing the game. Once again the ball found itself at my feet. I nutmegged one of their defenders, stepped over another–the ball clung to my feet like superglue and I sprinted towards the goal. I looked up once, conscious of heavy breathing coming close up behind me, then let rip before I had my legs unsurgically removed by the less than friendly defender.

The goalkeeper made a mistake, He went one way and the ball went the other. It hit his rear end and richoched into the net. It took three hours for the powers that be to award the goal to me, although from where I was standing it was going in anyway!

The whistle went and we had won!

Several hours later, I was in bed with my cocoa and my rabbit firmly in my arms as I recalled one of the best days of my life.

At the time, I didn’t take it all in; the congratulations of my team mates and the manager. The after match interview where I answered a few question, but can’t quite remember what I said. Jeff’s expression when he saw me and gave me a big hug was great to see. Another fantastic moment was when I was told that I was now in the first team squad and that I would have my contract amended. I was going to be seriously rich in a short space of time, but the figures didn’t matter as much to me as the fact that I was now officially the youngest ever premier league player and the youngest to score a goal, even though it was off the keepers bum!

I had been told to go back to the club on Monday to have a chat about my future and my agent and Jeff were going to be there too. Things were going to change for me now that I was in the public eye and I wasn’t sure that these changes were going to all be nice.

I had been given another mobile phone to replace the one that got smashed and I had given the number to Claire and a few others. I just hoped that the number wasn’t leaked to undesirables.

The thought of Claire reminded me that I had promised to ring her when I got back from the match but I was so tired, I couldn’t be bothered. Anyway I had promised to meet her at the shopping centre at ten am tomorrow, so I would tell her everything then–like! I would be going as Susan, so no one would recognise me, I hoped.

I woke up with a start; my new phone was beeping at me. At least it wasn’t that horrible froggy tune!

My cup was on the bed and I realised that I hadn’t even turned the light off last night. I must have been really tired. Picking up the cup, which luckily hadn’t spilled any cocoa on my lovely pink duvet, I put it on the bedside table and then yawning hugely, got out of bed and went for a wee.

Hitching up my nightie, I winced slightly as my warm botty connected with the cold plastic seat.

As I sat there, I rubbed my nipples absent mindedly; they were a bit tender, probably due to joggers nipple or something.

‘I’ll have to get some ointment for that.’ I thought.

After doing the necessary, I had a quick shower and then blow dried my hair. This was taking longer and longer as it grew out into a more girl like length.

Eventually, I put on my silky wrap and went into the kitchen for some breakfast.

I was still yawning as I ate my cornflakes and glanced at the clock…8.45!

Finishing my breakfast in record time, I went over to the closet to decide the thorny question that has plagued women for centuries–what to wear?

My phone beeped at me again, distracting me from my important task.

When I picked it up, I noticed that I had no less than 4 messages on it, all from Claire.

The first said ‘ring me’, the second ‘RING ME’, and the third said, ‘RING ME NOW!’

The final one sort of made me think that Claire wanted a word as it said, ‘PLEEEEAAASE RING ME YOU DOZY COW!’

So I rang her.

‘Hi, Claire.’

‘Where have you been, what are you doing, have you seen the news; Oh-My-God, like, I know someone famous.’

‘Claire.’

‘What, I mean I never knew that…’

CLAIRE!’

‘What, like I mean, WHAT!’

‘Take a chill pill and tell me what are you going on about?’

‘Didn’t you see match of the day last night; or the news–local and national–anything?’

‘No I was too knackered.’

‘Knackered; you are a celeb, girl. They think that you are the best thing to hit football for years. I didn’t realise this was so big when I… hang on I’ve got mums paper here. LOOK, I mean listen to this, ‘Young Mark Hurst came on to the scene and changed the face of football. Don’t underestimate the impact of the fifteen minutes he played for Melchester. Mark is only 15 years old but played like a veteran of 100 England caps.’ There’s a lot more and your picture is all over the back page.’

‘I don’t understand; I was only on for fifteen minutes and I got lucky, that’s all.’

‘Yea, but I like sat and watched it; as soon as you came on, the team sort of like lifted itself and it was like another game like. You are a star and no matter what you say, you are gonna get serious and I mean seriously famous.’

I didn’t like this. How could this be happening? I knew that if things went well, I would get some media attention, but this? Claire was talking–well gabbling really.

‘Claire.’ I interrupted.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know if I can take being famous and being recognised.’

‘I like thought about that. You want to be Susan, don’t you?’

‘Yea.’

When that slime ball reporter saw you outside your place he didn’t recognise you as Mark, did he?’

‘No.’

‘Well that’s it. You can be Susan anytime you want to go out and like no one will twig who you are.’

‘I don’t know…’

‘Look, you want like, a private life don’t you, where you can enjoy yourself and not worry about being mobbed by your adoring fans.’

‘Don’t be silly no one can be a fan of mine after 15 minutes of football!’

‘Wanna bet? There’s already a fans web page up; I’ve seen it and someone has started a facebook page too.’

‘Sh…!’

‘Don’t swear, it’s like naughty.’

‘I’ll ring you back.’ I said, putting down the phone.

Putting on the TV, I caught the end of the local sports news. My face was staring back at me. Then they showed a few clips of the game, including the goal. Switching off the TV, I fired up my laptop. I searched my name in Google and came up with a ton of hits; Some of them were referring to other people, but a disturbing number were about me. On the top of the list was markhurstfans.co.uk/ I didn’t want to look at it as it was too creepy for words. I switched off the laptop and lay back down on the bed.

My mobile went off and I picked it up, it was Jeff.

‘Hi, Jeff,’ I said hearing the quavery sound in my voice.

‘Hi, kid, I think we have a few problems we need to talk about. Have you seen the news and papers?’

I explained my conversation with Claire and what I had seen on TV and the net.’

‘Claire might be right, you know. If you are Susan in your private life, you might get a bit of privacy, but it depends on where you want to go with this. Mind you, if you were found out, the excrement would hit the fan. Look I’m coming over with Josie and the kids to the café. We’ll talk then, okay?’

‘’Kay.’

‘We’ll work it out, but one thing is certain.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s going to be interesting.’

I said goodbye and then on auto pilot, I finished dressing. After slapping on the makeup and lippy, all I could see was Susan staring at me from the mirror. It looked like I was going to have to make a decision about my life sooner than I thought. Could I be Susan and Mark and did I want that? Do I want to be a pro footballer if it meant going through my life under a spotlight?

Too many questions and not enough answers.

To be continued...

Please leave comments...thanks

My thanks go to the brilliant and lovely Gabi for editing and pulling the story into shape.