One Shot at Glory

  Chapter Three

  Dad gets the silent treatment for the rest of the night. If I’m being honest the initial shock while he plots my career doesn’t last long.

  I have other things to think about, like the biggest decision of my life. Tales of RAF heroism can wait as I lie on my bed well into the early hours.

  Mum and Dad just want the best for their only son, like any parent. I know that. They want to see me run out in that sky blue shirt as badly as I do, but this was the real world, not some comic book fantasy. I was a teenager in a small town. The football universe didn’t begin and end at Lowfield Road.

  Face it, Wolston don’t want me. Or at least that’s how it felt even before Mr Evatt’s surprise visit. If Rob Duncan doesn’t think I can cut it then what next? Now I have a Plan B.

  Rejection from Rovers is going to sting every bit as much as being carried off that pitch with a broken ankle.

  Give me the tears, the self-doubt, the hurt, anything but a lifetime of regrets knowing the only club I ever wanted to play for doesn’t want me. But at least Chapel’s offer can take the edge off that pain, better than giving up on the dream.

  It means I can aim higher than running around with my mates on a Sunday morning. I don’t want university and all that entails. Mum probably does, but she knows me well enough to realise that constitutes failure; a kick in the stomach, an admission her son is settling for second best.

  Even before Evatt turned my world upside down I was starting to confront the alternatives. The nearest professional club to Wolston is a good 40 miles away, a lower league outfit with lower league resources and their own youth side to pick from.

  There are exit trials for other cast-offs, lads who have been released like me. Thrust together in makeshift teams full of boys desperate to impress watching coaches who turn up hoping to find a gem that has fallen through the net. It was a lottery and I didn’t fancy my chances of holding a winning ticket.

  Non league football is another option, training twice a week alongside college, hoping to get spotted by a professional team. Some hope. Clubs all across the country churn out hundreds of teenage rejects like me. How many take a punt on someone released by Wolston now scoring the odd goal in front of a handful of fans?

  Dad discovers me the following morning still fully-dressed lying on top of my bed after finally drifting off to sleep.

  ‘Restless night, lad?’

  ‘It’s a lot to take in.’

  I wanted answers but he couldn’t really give me any. Duncan is the only man who could and that meeting isn’t for another week. At least we can make our peace over Evatt’s bombshell visit.

  ‘I’ll be honest David, before your ankle injury I’d have told him not to even bother, but that changed everything.’

  Dad tries to avoid eye contact. A classic tactic in the Shaw household between father and son. I doubt he wants to open up those mental wounds again, but he’s right. Things were different now for me and him; Dad more than anyone in my selfish, self-centred world had suffered the fallout from my tantrums and emotional distress over these past 12 months.

  Right at this moment I realise it isn’t only Dave Shaw who has been in so much pain. Mum and Dad carried the same scars; only they were powerless to make things better for their only child.

  Why me?

  It is a question I had asked so many times since the injury. Life had been easy. I just went out, played games and scored goals. There was nothing more to it. It was simple, fun and I’d never understood why others were unable to do the same just as well.

  But this past year had been brutal.

  Where was the fun in hours of gym work to re-build a shattered right ankle to reach a point where it was now strong enough to contemplate doing something I had taken for granted in the past? Never mind try and master it.

  Then you had the mental rigours of re-programming the brain, learning where to run, where to find space again on a football field and the huge, intense pressure to perform straight away. No gentle pre-season build ups, no defenders pulling out of tackles or keepers jumping out of the way of shots, or Duncan offering a soothing word, a protective arm.

  ‘Do you think I should tell Rovers about Chapel’s approach, Dad?’

  ‘You could speak to Bopper. Why don’t you see if he is up at The Lodge tonight? He’s bound to be helping out coaching some of the younger age groups. You know he’ll offer you sound advice.’