Chapter 1

The cross was perfect. For a moment, Leo McCarthy’s pale green eyes lit up.

The ball was travelling right to him. The goalkeeper was out of position. The goal was completely open. The net was simply begging for someone to put the ball in it.

This was it. The chance Leo had been waiting for. With only a few minutes of the match left, he had the perfect opportunity to score his first ever goal in a proper match.

The boy watched the ball carefully. Determined not to take his eyes off it. Time seemed to slow down as it moved ever closer.

Leo braced himself, ready for the contact.

Then…

Nothing.

The ball floated harmlessly past him and off the side of the pitch for a throw-in.

For a moment, Leo couldn’t work out what had gone wrong. How had he not managed to make contact?

It didn’t take him long to realise the reason.

Becoming aware of how he was standing, Leo was shocked to discover that his knees were now far more bent than they had been mere seconds earlier. What’s more, his head was suddenly hunched tightly into his shoulders. He looked not too dissimilar to a turtle retracting its head into its shell.

“Don’t duck out of the way of it!” he heard someone roar crossly from the sideline. 

Leo didn’t need to look round to see who the cry had come from. He already knew. And he could clearly picture the look of disappointment, tinged with a smattering of disgust, that would be plastered across the man’s face.

The man for whom nothing Leo ever did was good enough. Especially when it came to football.

The man who was Leo’s Dad.

According to his Dad, Leo’s tackles weren’t strong enough. His passes not accurate enough. He didn’t run as much as the other players. Refused to head the ball. Spent too much time daydreaming, not concentrating on the match. 

Even the base layer he sometimes wore under his kit to help keep him warm during the cold winter months had drawn scornful comments from this father.

“Didn’t need rubbish like that back when I was your age,” his Dad had moaned upon Leo’s Mum returning home from a shopping trip with the garments. “My Old Man wouldn’t even let me wear a vest under my kit. Always told me that if I ran around enough, I’d soon get warm. He was right, too. Kids were much tougher back when I was your age.”

Fortunately, Leo’s Mum had stuck up for her son. She'd pointed out that all the other boys and girls wore the exact same items when they played. And a fair few of the professional players, too.

 Begrudgingly, Dad had agreed to let his son wear the base layers. But only when it was “really, really cold.”

Every now and then, his Dad would question Leo as to whether he really liked football or not. He would say that it never looked like his son enjoyed playing that much. 

But nothing could be further from the truth. Leo loved playing football. More than anything. Normally.

It was the being moaned at part that he didn’t enjoy!

As he trudged dejectedly back to the halfway line, hands placed firmly on his head, Leo fought the urge to glance at his father. However, try as he might, he couldn’t resist doing so.

Sure enough, even the quickest of peeks was enough to confirm that his Dad had the look on his face. The one that said, ‘how did you miss that, you wally? I would have buried that when I was your age. I don’t know why I bother carting you about here, there and everywhere for a game that you’re so truly abysmal at. Complete waste of my time.’

Of course, his Dad never actually said these words aloud. He didn’t have to. It was all there, written all over his face. He may as well have been shouting them through a megaphone.

Why couldn’t he just enthusiastically clap his hands together and say ‘unlucky, you’ll get it next time,’ like all the other parents did? Why couldn’t he just be… encouraging?

That’s all Leo wanted. Words of praise from his father. The one person above all others who the ten-year-old boy was desperate to please.

The game continued. But Leo’s heart was no longer in it. He couldn’t shake the missed opportunity from his mind. Or the look of repulsion on his Dad’s face.

He tried to get involved. But the willingness to run towards the ball or to launch himself into a tackle was no longer there. He’d had enough for today. He just wanted the ref to blow his whistle for full time. He knew there wasn’t long left.

As Leo stood on the halfway line, impatiently waiting for the game to be brought to a conclusion, his team won a late corner.

“Go on, Leo, up you go,” he heard his coach call from the sideline. “This will be the last action of the match. We need an equaliser. No need to be defending now.”

Sighing, Leo slowly ambled towards the opposition’s penalty area.

“Don’t duck out the way this time,” he heard his Dad shout. Although he said it in a jokey way, one that invited a polite ripple of laughter from some of the other parents, Leo knew he wasn’t joking. Not really.

This time, though, the rebuke didn’t cause Leo to lose confidence. Instead, it sent a surge of anger racing through his veins. He’d had enough. He’d show him. This time, if the ball came in his direction, he wouldn’t duck out the way of it. Or turn his back. No matter what.

The corner came in. Once again, the delivery was perfect. This in itself was something of a surprise. Usually, most of the players on Leo’s team struggled to get the ball in the air from corner kicks. So, for the same player to have done so twice in a row, was an outcome approaching a mini-miracle.

As was the fact that again the ball was heading right towards Leo.

Leo had a clear a sense of déjà vu. Or at least he would have done if he’d known what déjà vu actually meant.

The boy forced himself to watch the ball as it approached. Fighting with all his might against the urge to twist his body away from it.

Then, just as the ball arrived, he did the one thing that his coach had always told him, and his teammates, never to do. Not under any circumstances.

He didn’t duck away from the ball. Or even place his hands in front of his face to protect it from the impact.

No. What he did was far, far worse.

He closed his eyes.

The ball smashed Leo hard in the face.

And everything went black.

Chapter 2 to be released on 5th August 2024 

Text and image copyright © David Fuller

 David Fuller asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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