Chapter 4

 

It took Leo a few seconds to fully comprehend what Matt had just said.

“You… you want me to play?” Leo asked, dubiously. “For your actual team?”

“Yeah. Why Not?” Jamie responded, shrugging his slender shoulders. “It doesn’t matter that you’re a bit younger than the rest of us. You’re not that much smaller than Matt or Pete. And, anyway, I suppose it’ll be more use having you playing than no one at all.”

“Plus…” added Matt, smirking, “having you on our team might confuse the opposition. When they see you and Pete together, they might think they’re seeing double.”

It was a quip that caused all the boys to chuckle. All except for Pete. And Leo.

“He don’t look like me,” moaned Pete, a little too loudly. It was a reaction which only provoked more good-natured ribbing from his friends.

Leo’s mind was whirring. He suddenly felt dizzier than he had done when he’d stood up mere moments earlier. It was impossible to think straight. To take in everything that was happening. 

Within the space of just a few minutes, he’d somehow managed to travel back through time, meet his Dad as a young boy, and been picked to play on the same football team as him. Surely even Doctor Who would have found such a chain of events hard to take in?

“So, you up for it or not?” Jamie asked.

‘No,’ Leo wanted to reply. ‘No. Of course I’m not. This is mad. I’m not even born yet. And that boy who looks like me is actually almost certainly my Dad. Playing football in the same team as him would be ludicrous. Insane. And, anyway, I need to work out a way to get back to my own time. Where I belong. If only I had a Tardis!’

He didn’t say any of this, though. Instead he slightly inclined his head and mumbled, “yeah, why not.”

“Cool,” said Jamie, patting the younger boy encouragingly on the shoulder. “Bernie will be here in a minute with the kit. What position do you play?”

Leo shrugged. “Anywhere really. Our coach makes us play in all different positions.”

This seemingly innocuous response drew an unexpected look of bemusement from the rest of the boys. 

“Really?” Matt scoffed, sounding well and truly perplexed. “How does that even work? I mean, you couldn’t exactly put me at centre back, could you?”

“Why not?” enquired Leo, his baffled expression now mirroring those on the faces of the other boys.

“Because I’m small,” answered Matt, in a way that implied he was talking to an idiot. “And I don’t have that hard a kick.”

“So…” Leo pressed on, still not getting whatever point Matt was trying to make.

“What do you mean ‘so’?” Matt retorted, ill-temperedly. “If I can’t kick the ball hard, then I can’t hoof it up the pitch to our forwards, can I? Plus, how am I supposed to win headers when they punt the ball up to their striker? I ain’t going to be able to, am I! No. I’m small and quick, so I play on the wing or up-front. Like Pete. Jamie’s tall and strong and, no offence Jamie, not particularly skilful, so he plays at the back. That’s just the way it is. The way it’ll always be. Isn’t that right, lads?”

Leo wasn’t sure that what Matt had said was right. However, noticing that all the others were nodding vigorously in agreement – including Jamie, who Leo was fairly sure Matt had just insulted – he decided not to argue.  

“That’s right,” Jamie agreed. “I’m a big, strong centre-half. Just like Terry Butcher.”

Leo looked blankly at the tall, spotty boy.

“I’m a skilful winger, like Chrissy Waddle…” said Matt.

Again, the name failed to provoke a response from Leo. Who were these people? He’d never heard of them.

“… While Trev, here,” Matt continued, gesturing towards a blonde-haired boy who was wearing a pair of round-rimmed glasses, “is a goalscorer. Like Gary Lineker.”

“The Match of the Day man,” Leo whooped, pleased to have finally heard of one of the men Matt had mentioned.

Seven highly-confused faces instantly turned to Leo.

“That’s Des Lynam!” Matt exclaimed, bemused by Leo’s outburst. “You’re really odd!”

‘Whatever,’ Leo thought to himself. ‘Just you wait and see. We’ll see who’s odd.’

“Probably be best if Bernie puts him at left- or right-back,” said another of the boys with whom Leo had yet to be introduced. This boy had one of the weirdest hair-cuts Leo had ever seen. It was cut fairly short at the front and sides, but had been left long at the back. Coupled with the turquoise and yellow checked tracksuit-thingy he was wearing, the boy made for quite a disconcerting sight.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” said Matt. “He won’t be able to do any damage there, will he?” he added, winking playfully at Leo.

Before anyone could answer, the sound of a couple of short-sharp beeps pierced the air. It appeared to have come from Jamie.

The tall, spotty boy raised his left arm and pulled back the sleeve of his shiny bright red top, revealing a chunky black watch that, rather bizarrely, seemed to have a calculator on it. “It’s 10am,” he declared. “Bernie will be here in a minute, if he’s not already. We better get over to the changing rooms. You know what he’s like when we’re late.”

Without hesitation, the seven boys turned and started to make their way quickly across the field, heading towards a small, dilapidated portable building by the entrance to the park. 

Leo hurriedly scurried after them. His mind still trying, and failing, to process quite what was happening.

As he followed behind the other boys, he started to become aware of just how big the pitch was. A full-sized, adult 11-a-side pitch. It was massive.

Leo had mostly only played 7-a-side so far. He was due to go up to 9-a-side next season when he reached the under 11s. He’d had a couple of practice games in that format and thought that those pitches were big enough. But this! This was ridiculous. 

How was a ten-year-old boy supposed to get up and down repeatedly? It would be impossible. He’d be knackered after five minutes. It was little wonder that Matt had spoken about the need to hoof the ball forward!

Leo’s Dad – the 40-year-old version of Pete McCarthy, not the 11-year-old one – was always telling his son how lucky he was to play in small-sided games.

“Think yourself lucky,” the adult Pete would say whenever Leo moaned about being tired after a match. “I used to have to play on a pitch three times the size the one you do when I was your age.”

Leo had always thought his Dad was exaggerating. He now knew that he wasn’t. Not about this, at least.

This got Leo to thinking about some of the other things he was always being told by his Dad. About how much tougher the kids were back when he was a kid. About how the game was faster. The ball’s heavier and the ref’s far more lenient.

Leo had never really known whether to believe all his Dad’s claims or to take them with a pinch of salt. He now figured it wouldn’t be too long before he found out what the actual truth was.

It was while he was considering all this, that something else occurred to him. Something that instantly stopped him dead in his tracks. 

He’d heard a couple of the boys mention it. But he hadn’t really been paying attention. Still hadn’t been thinking clearly.

The name of the team’s coach was Bernie.

One of Leo’s Grandad’s was also called Bernie. Or at least had been. He had died when Leo was only a baby. The young boy had no real memories of him.

Yet, as he stood there, thinking, he remembered something else his Dad had once told him. When Pete was a boy, his father had coached the team he played for.

The realisation caused a trickle of sweat to break out on Leo’s forehead and drip steadily down the side of his pale, freckled face.

Not only was Leo just about to get to play football with his Dad. He was also about to be coached by his dead Grandad.

Chapter 5 to be released on 8th August 2024

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