Chapter Four
Fair play to Evatt, he takes his brush off well.
Chapel United’s head of recruitment probably knew he was on a loser the moment Rob Duncan was ready to play ball. I still felt I owed him an explanation. I’d been grateful for his lifeline when I thought Wolston were not interested.
Evatt admitted he would have done exactly the same in my shoes. Maybe an hour sat in the Shaw living room was enough to convince him of one thing - our family were Wolston daft.
That affinity to my hometown club was clear. From my pleas to Mum digging out photo albums full of my goalscoring exploits in the junior ranks to Dad stumbling down memory lane recalling classic Wolston matches.
We both knew the prospect of me heading north was a consolation prize.
But Nigel Evatt is not a man to take rejection personally. If he can’t have Dave Shaw, he’ll settle for Wayne Bufton, my old academy strike partner who did so much to help us win the title - probably more than me if truth be told.
News leaks out over the coming days. Who was in and who wasn’t at Wolston. From my showdown with Duncan it seemed pretty clear he didn’t think Wayne could cut it.
Evatt felt differently. Wazza might have been his fall back option but he’d added goals to his nuisance value and was bound to attract interest.
I am going to miss playing with him but in a straight fight between us there is only one winner. Luckily it’s me.
Duncan had no room for sentiment. The offer of an academy scholarship is in Wolston’s best interests. I’m just a commodity he can develop.
That’s not being cynical, more realistic. Duncan is right about one thing. The injury has made me mature a lot faster. I’m still chasing the same hopes and dreams as that five-year-old who went to his first Wolston game. But this is a cut-throat business. For smaller clubs like Wolston or Chapel United it is a high stakes gamble. Find a gem, polish him up and hopefully when the time comes, cash in. Sell for millions and you make enough money to keep an academy running for the next five, maybe ten years until the next prospect comes along.
Talent is not enough. You have to unearth the right characters, not cocky teenagers who think they’ve made it. I was selfish on the pitch, too outspoken for my own good off it at times, but I wasn’t deluded.
The previous eight years were all about getting me to the start line. Now I had a real shot at making it.
Duncan’s ‘lazy’ jibe cut deep. Another entry on his crime sheet, another reason to stick two fingers up to prove him wrong. All summer I tell myself the only way to change his opinion is to knuckle down.
That means no partying after my exams were over.
Dad’s lectures were not worth the hassle if I did get the urge to go out with my mates. Partying and the life of a wannabe footballer don’t mix. Friday nights during the season were spent at home while they hit the bars, then listening to all the best bits about their drunken antics at school on Monday mornings.
It was tough. There were times I craved a normal life, just having fun, not worrying abut the consequences, but that’ll come later, along with the nice motor, designer threads and loft apartment.
Yes, I’d already spent the first professional contract, and the one after that.
School and junior football were behind me but it still feels like my first day all over again as Dad pulls off the main road through the big wrought iron gates at the entrance to The Lodge on a beautiful July morning.
I’m rubbing shoulders with the bigger boys and desperate to keep my head down.
The place looks the same but there is a different vibe, a different energy during the day. Before when I was part of the academy you came up here in the evenings after school to train, or at weekends to play.
This is for real now.
There is a big, black gleaming 4x4 parked in our usual spot on the far side of what now resembles a car showroom. Wolston’s first team squad must be back as well for pre-season judging by the number of personalised number plates, tinted windows and sharp alloys.
I unclip my seat belt and feel a tingle down my spine. I’m no longer in a mad rush to leave the security of Dad’s motor. It hits me I am part of this circus, albeit a small, insignificant part. And it feels scary.
‘Go on David, or you’ll be late.’
Dad seems just as nervous. Or maybe he is late for work, like his son.
‘…and don’t forget your packed lunch,’ he laughs. ‘Remember to do what the teacher tells you. And one final thing, don’t let the big boys bully you.’
I slam the passenger door shut and give him a mocking wave as he pulls away across the shale car park past the freshly-cut pitches.
The double doors to the single storey main building slide smoothly open as I approach. I’d been told to report to reception for 9.30am.
I look down at my watch. 9.36am. Not a good start. There is nobody in reception, but I can hear a woman talking from behind a half-closed door.
Do I shout? Do I wait for her to come out? What is Duncan going to say about my time keeping?
‘Morning, young man.’
I spin round in the direction of the voice coming from over my left shoulder. Mark Peacock, Wolston’s first team manager, is striding towards me with a mug of tea in his right hand and a bundle of envelopes tucked under his other arm.
‘Mr Peacock. Hello.’
The top man at Rovers is now standing in front of me. This chance meeting is doing nothing for my first day nerves.
‘And what’s your name, son? You look a little lost.’
Lost? More like crushed.
I admit I’m disappointed he doesn’t know who I am. Dave Shaw, the young hotshot who single-handedly clinched Wolston’s first academy title in years. Okay. Maybe not single-handedly but you get my drift.
We’d met briefly at the championship party at Lowfield Road after the Arsenal win. Very briefly it seems.
‘David Shaw. I’m one of the club’s new academy scholars. I was told to report here this morning for my induction.’
‘What position do you play, David?’
‘Striker. I’m from Wolston.’
‘Ah, yes. Rob Duncan mentioned we have some local talent in our latest intake. Are you the lad whose family are lifelong Wolston supporters?’
Correct. Now he was warming up. Just wait until I tell Dad about this tonight. No. On second thoughts I’ll tease him for the ribbing he just gave me outside in the car park. Peacock, the FA Cup-winning player, had been one of his idols.
Peacock, the manager, was preparing for his third season at the club after a mid-table Championship finish last year. Dad renewed our season tickets this summer more in hope than expectation. When he first started taking me I watched the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal at Lowfield and thought it would always be that way.
Peacock had returned promising to restore those glory days. He was taller in the flesh and tanned. I doubt he’d spent his summer in some Majorcan timeshare like the Shaw clan, probably an expensive Caribbean bolthole.
‘Yes, that’s me.’
That’s me. Have a word. Is that all you can say to the man?
Talk about making a good first impression. I’m desperate to avoid eye contact and incapable of stringing a sentence together.
Now, you should know me well enough by now. I don’t normally lack for self-confidence. But I’d only really watched Wolston’s manager from a distance; maybe on television or patrolling the touchline at Lowfield Road or on the rare occasion at the odd academy game if he happened to be here and the first team was not playing.
Now I’m having a conversation. Of sorts. Bopper had told us stories about what a brilliant coach he was, how he trusted his players, how he respected them and they respected him.
After the Premier League money dried up he’d guided Rovers away from relegation in his first full season.
Last year the club had been right in the play-off mix until injuries and su
spensions hit after Christmas. The local media and all the fans that I knew loved this guy. You could sense a growing optimism maybe the club was finally on the up again.
‘Well David, I’d better keep tabs on you then. Supporters love nothing better than to see one of their own wearing the sky blue shirt. Best of luck and do what your coaches tell you. Above everything else, work hard.’
I watch him walk towards the far end of the reception before disappearing through another set of double doors. It felt real now. I was here. I could reach out and touch the dream.
‘Shaw, you’re late. Not a good start eh, laddie?’
Rob Duncan motions me towards him with his finger. The Scot is standing at the entrance to a corridor on the opposite side of the plush reception area. This was our first contact since his scholarship offer. The usual scowl replacing that collector’s item of a smile from a memorable day in his office.
Or maybe I imagined that rare sighting during my out-of-body experience?
I follow Rovers’ academy chief back into what looks at first sight like a home cinema room. I swiftly discover it’s where Peacock and his squad watch footage of the opposition, analyse set pieces or sift through match statistics on work-rate, number of kilometres covered, successful entries in the final third. Vast amounts of data produced by our sports science department.
A large widescreen projector is mounted on the opposite wall. Two rows of comfy, black leather chairs dominate the floor space. It looks like a scene straight out of those television programmes I love to watch touring the cribs of famous rappers or sporting icons; mansions with palm trees in the garden and swimming pools with fancy inscribed tiles. Gaffes that scream money and fame.
Jack Goddard, Mike Usher and Jim Cornforth are already sitting in the second row behind four faces I don’t recognise. Duncan makes his way to the front after telling me to sit on the end of the row next to Jim. He is flanked by two other guys wearing Rovers tracksuits.
‘Right gentlemen. Time for some introductions now Shaw has kindly decided to show up.’
Yep, normal service definitely resumed.
‘On my left is Matt Kearns, who runs the educational side of the scholarship. On my right, Terry Dooley, the academy Under-18s coach.’
I had seen Dooley around The Lodge in the past. He was a short, squat guy who didn’t look like he’d ever been a footballer. For me, he had a tough act to follow after Bopper French.
Kearns talks us through a presentation covering our apprenticeship in sporting excellence qualification. This is like being back at school. We’ll attend a local college during the week and spend Friday afternoons at The Lodge in one of the classrooms, with him monitoring our progress. Everything from diet and nutrition to media training.
Goddard tries stifling a yawn.
Don’t set me off, man. The only classroom I want to spend time in is the other side of these walls out on those beautiful pitches.
‘Right, you four need no introductions to me but for the benefit of these new lads.’
Duncan points in my direction.
‘Hi, my name’s David Shaw.’
I pause for a second, then sit back down again as I don’t know what else to say. Goddard and the rest of my former academy team mates snigger at my embarrassment.
The new boys turn to look at me. I love being centre of attention on the football pitch but not here in this environment.
‘Hey Kearnsy, I think he could do with some public speaking, never mind media training.’
Even Duncan sees the funny side of Jim’s wisecrack. I fix Jimmy with the death stare but it doesn’t last long. He is my best pal at the club.
Jim moved down from Scotland a couple of years ago. I think his Dad came to work in the offshore gas industry. He enrolled at my school with his younger sister and we’d hit it off straight away, or to be precise once I’d seen him play. You didn’t need Rob Duncan’s gift for talent spotting to realise he was a prospect, a Scottish schoolboy international who was part of the Hearts’ junior set-up.
Our age group at Wolston had always been competitive, but Jimbo was the one who made the difference.
Over the summer he told me about interest from a few top flight clubs back up in Scotland but Jim wasn’t keen on going home. He might not have shared my deep love for Wolston, but both of us knew Rovers is a fantastic place to learn your trade.
Jimmy was the sort of lad everyone likes. Funny, warm, would do anything for anyone. Qualities I had in short supply if I’m honest. Maybe that was it; a case of opposites attract.
Goddard stands up followed by our academy keeper, Mike Usher. I wasn’t big mates with Goddard but there is a mutual respect from coming through the ranks together. Mike was part of it for a good few years as well. He was a great shot stopper. Perhaps his decision-making let him down at times.
‘Now then, you four have an extra responsibility to show these newer boys the ropes,’ Duncan jabs that finger again in my direction. ‘You know how I work and how we do things here at Wolston.’
At last, the only interesting bit of this whole charade as Duncan beckons forward the fresh meat.
The first lad is a serious unit, broad as Goddard, dark-haired and thick-set.
‘I know him. He’s an Irish schoolboy international,’ whispers Jim, clearly recalling a previous derby meeting or two between Celtic rivals.
Joe Louisburgh was a midfielder from Dublin. The quiet voice belied the guy’s powerful physique. He smiles nervously before sinking back into his chair. He seems a shy lad on first impression. This whole experience can’t be easy. There I was fretting about moving north to join Chapel and Joe pitches up from a different country far away from his family and friends.
Duncan had obviously cast his net wide. Steve Bolder and Jamie Green rise almost in tandem. Both recruited from the same Swansea suburb in South Wales.
I glance at Goddard who edges forward in his chair. Hours spent in Kearns’ classes were never going to hold his attention like a threat posed by two new defensive rivals.
Wolston traditionally tapped into talent from that part of the world. Brain Killen – Rovers’ legendary FA Cup-winning skipper – had been a Welsh international centre-back.
That left just one more unidentified target; a tall, blond lad who is up out of his chair before the two Welsh boys even sit down.
‘Good morning everybody. My name’s Olaf Thin. I’m a striker from Denmark and I look forward to getting to know you all.’
Olaf smiles broadly before moving a couple of paces towards our row and shaking every hand in turn. The Dane’s self-confidence slightly unnerves me as I feel his firm grip.
‘Hello, my name’s David Shaw.’
‘Hello David. Very nice to meet you.’
The guy’s English is perfect. It blows my German out of the water.
Duncan places a protective arm around him as he wrestles back control of proceedings.
‘Olaf is someone we’ve monitored for a few years. We have good scouting links in Denmark and he is a prolific scorer for youth sides in Copenhagen. He’s already a Danish Under-18 international, but I’m pleased to say we’ve managed to convince him his future lies in England.’
Thin flashes another gleaming smile towards Duncan.
‘But Mr Duncan, you didn’t need to convince me. Not after I’d toured the stadium, the training facilities here at The Lodge, and of course met Mr Peacock.’
Peacock. I slump further into my leather seat. That’ll teach me to mock Goddard as the upholstery begins to feel strangely lumpy and uncomfortable.
Duncan had enlisted the club’s first team manager as part of the bait; the full red carpet treatment. No insults or lazy jibes directed at this young forward.
Let’s get one thing straight here. Competition doesn’t scare me. I’d had it all the way through. The difference was I knew I was better than any other rivals. That’s an arrogant thing to say but it was a fact. I hadn’t seen anyone in Rovers’ academy ranks t
o fear, and I include the second year scholars we were now about to join up with as well, those operating a year above me in the pecking order.
Olaf Thin is an unknown quantity. An outsider, and a bit special, judging by Duncan’s body language.
Just in case I needed an extra spark to combat my natural aversion to training, this is it.
Three evening sessions a week after school is one thing, but double shifts Monday to Friday with a game at the weekend is a painful introduction to the professional ranks.
I lift more weights in the first month than I had done my entire life. Every muscle aches as I drag myself through the front door each night, barely having enough energy to force down a meal and crawl upstairs to bed.
Our house had never been so quiet; Dad probably yearning for the regular arguments.
The new boys, along with Goddard and Usher, were housed in digs at the club’s hostel based a mile or so from The Lodge, along with most of the second year scholars. I plumped for home comforts after my Chapel near-miss, but was soon regretting the decision.
Now I feel like the outsider. Bar me and Jimbo, everyone else is training together, studying together or spending time at the hostel. There I am sitting with Mum and Dad in our living room every night as some savage banter kicks off on social media over games of Fifa or tastes in music. Jim was a natural mixer. He was able to bridge the growing divide. I wasn’t.
Bonds were forming. I’d arrive at The Lodge in the mornings, head for the changing rooms and they’d already be there, the jibes and the jokes flowing all the way from their digs to training.
I try making an effort but console myself it is about performing on the pitch and impressing Dooley and Duncan.
The long, cross-country coach trip to Norwich for the opening game of our season gives me plenty of time to ponder if I am in the first starting line up.
Dooley mixed and matched during the friendlies; a half here, a half there. No chance to try and forge a partnership with Thin. Just enough time to know the Dane is pure class. His touch and movement and eye for goal are there for all to see in pre-season. My initial fears were well-founded. I know already it’s going to be who Dooley feels can operate with Olaf if he goes two up front.
First I have to get past Phil Warwick. A second year scholar, one year older, one year more experienced but nowhere near as good as me.
Not from what I’d seen in training or heard about his struggles this time last year making the same leap from promising junior to budding professional.
Time is running out. Phil has this season to convince the big cheeses or he’ll be cut adrift, dropping through the leagues or even into part-time football. For me it was a big, fat thumb’s down all the way. He’s another Wayne Bufton.
Stop doubting yourself, Dave. Relax. It has to be you partnering the Danish boy wonder.
‘Right lads, listen up.’ Dooley casually leans against a noticeboard in the away changing room at Norwich’s smart training complex. ‘I want us to lay down a marker today. This is the team I believe can get us off to winning ways.’
He starts scribbling names from back to front. It’s like waiting for your lottery numbers.
‘Usher, Goddard, Bolder, Green...’
Goddard is sitting opposite me. He never even looks up, just continues tying his laces, like he already knew. Cocky so-and-so.
‘…Jimbo and Louisburgh in the centre of midfield, strikers Warwick and Thinny.’
I’m gutted. I stare at the whiteboard for a few seconds focusing on those last two names.
This has a sick symmetry to it. I finish one season on the bench and start the next - on the bench. Like all those hours pumping iron in the gym, all those laps running around pitches, staying behind for extra work on my game count for nothing.
Dooley is Duncan-lite, another paid-up member of the jury still out on Dave Shaw, another who doesn’t trust me.
Well, trust is a two-way thing and right at this minute the feeling is mutual as I trudge to my seat in the away dugout.
Bopper made you want to play for him. You never wanted to let him down. He didn’t see me as some loose cannon, a maverick, a selfish individual. He saw someone who could make a difference.
Dooley’s team selection errs on the side of caution. Safety-first from a coach favouring hard work over flair. Phil Warwick is a water carrier, a whole-hearted player who will do a job for the team. He might not win too many games on his own but he’s reliable and for Dooley that seems the perfect foil to his Danish starlet.
Maybe he sees me as too much like Thinny? Only an inferior product. That hurts.
Mentally I’m not in a good place as Norwich kick off the new season.
The Canaries have two speed merchants down the flanks and a canny operator pulling the strings in the hole behind the front two.
Jimbo looks leggy in the heat. Not that he’s alone. The pace of the game rapidly drops as players try conserving energy in the sticky, summer conditions.
Just before the interval Norwich’s number nine pounces on Goddard’s weak back pass to bury a clinical shot underneath Mike Usher.
Mike is beaten again from a good 20 yards in first-half stoppage time by the same lad.
I’d never come across him before; he must be a second year scholar for the Canaries. It’s all I can do to stop myself applauding from my perch in the away dugout.
Surely Dooley is going to change things at the break? We need goals to get back into this.
Here I am boss. Ready when you are. No? Start the second half on the bench? Okay, if you insist. You know what you’re doing. I suppose.
Dooley gives the lads who started the game a chance to dig themselves out of this hole. Good for them, bad for me. The match slips back into the same depressing pattern. Norwich retain possession as we toil in the heat. It must be 30 degrees at pitch level.
Maybe this is a good one to miss after all.
I go for a little stretch by the corner flag. My frustration is rising at Dooley’s cautious approach. Jimbo floats a pass to Thinny who controls it with his left on the edge of the Norwich box before slamming a right-footed volley into the top corner with his other foot.
Norwich’s keeper makes a desperate attempt to claw it out but only ends up tangled in his netting.
What a fantastic goal. It had everything; balance, technique, power. I knew better than most the degree of difficulty.
Olaf races into the Norwich goal to retrieve the ball as the home keeper tries to untangle himself. No time for celebrations as he sprints back towards the centre circle, places the ball on the spot and the urges his team mates to up the intensity.
The lads respond. Jimbo and Joe start gaining the upper hand in midfield for the first time this afternoon. Warwick rifles well over before Jimbo’s curling free kick thuds against the outside of a post. For the next 10 minutes or so it’s like the boys are tapping into our Danish power source. Now it’s Norwich starting to look weary, running on empty.
Dooley turns around at the front of the technical area and points at me.
‘Go and get loose again, Shawsy. You’re going on.’
At last. I reckon a handful of minutes, plus time added on, was better than nothing.
I just need one chance. That’s all, one chance, one goal and I’ll do my talking on the pitch.
Thinny chases Joe’s raking pass deep into the left-hand channel as I rip off my training bib.
He cuts back onto his right and unleashes another instinctive strike that veers up and over the sprawling Norwich keeper.
Dooley punches the air as some of the Wolston subs surge onto the pitch to celebrate.
This guy is pure dynamite. He’s scored two beauties to drag us level after we’d looked dead and buried.
I jog back to the dugout. I can’t wait to finally strut my stuff alongside our superstar-in-the-making. No wonder Duncan was keen to launch a charm offensive to get him to Wolston, maybe that’s why he’d enlisted Peacock’s hel
p.
I’d already seen what he could do in training and pre-season. Now he was turning on the style in the first real game that mattered. Duncan must have snatched him from under the noses of some Premier League clubs. On this display he looks unplayable.
Dooley puts an arm around me.
Time for some final instructions, time for Dave Shaw to win another game for his boyhood club.
‘Right Dave. We’re taking Phil off. I want you to play wide on the right in a five-man midfield. We need to shore things up behind Olaf to see this game out.’
Wide right? I look down at the guy. No, he was having a laugh. We’ve just got back in the game, Norwich is hanging on, we have the momentum, and Dooley wants to run down the clock. Worse, he feels the best way to do that is by sticking me in midfield.
‘You want me to push on and support Olaf, gaffer?’
I was clutching for a straw or two here to make sense of it.
‘…no, tuck in and track back with their wide man.’
So, let me get this straight. You are throwing on a proven goalscorer to do a shut up shop job? That’s ridiculous, Dooley.
We have other lads in the squad who can fulfil that brief better than me. Maybe something else was going on here. Maybe this wasn’t about Norwich and protecting a point at all.
Is the guy trying to put me in my place? Show Dave Shaw, his team mates and anyone else who cared that Thinny is the star and I’m strictly the support act? The sooner I get used to it the better.
I tap Phil on the shoulder as I race onto the pitch. I feel like tapping Dooley a good deal harder, then ripping up my scholarship contract and getting on the next train to Chapel.
I slam on the brakes when I reach the opposite flank. It’s still not far enough away from Dooley for me. Norwich’s head coach throws on two defensive subs of his own. Dooley’s tactical switch seems to have triggered an end to hostilities.
Let’s play out time and we’ll both go home with a point apiece and something to build on.
I burst forward, crossing the halfway line, but Jamie Green takes the ball into the corner to win us a throw-in.
Dooley must be so proud.
It’s more precious seconds killed and I’ve not even had a kick as the referee glances at his watch to see how much stoppage time to play.
Norwich easily deal with our throw-in. Their keeper retrieves the ball and smashes it forward as I amble back towards my own goal. For someone who had spent his entire career timing runs into opposition penalty boxes, the art of defending is an alien concept to me.
Pity no-one told Dooley that.
Norwich’s blond-haired midfielder gathers the ball, looks up and whips in a cross to the far post.
Just out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of yellow, then a nudge as he brushes past me on the edge of our penalty area.
A growing, rancid feeling stirs in my stomach. He’s got the run on me here and I’m slow to react. I can see the ball’s flight as I turn and this guy is the clear favourite to get there first.
It’s got ‘goal’ written all over it as it drops towards the back stick. If it’s me latching onto this cross at the other end of the pitch I bury it. In desperation I lunge forward, he tumbles, I land on top of him in a heap.
The whistle blows.
Ref, tell me it’s for full-time. Please. I look up and Mike Usher has the ball but the referee is standing on the spot pointing towards our goal.
Penalty.
I’ve practically assaulted the Norwich player. I peer down at the ground and then at my team mates in the vicinity. No-one is complaining to the official. That’s damning. The Norwich player hauls himself to his feet as I troop to the edge of the penalty area, praying for a miracle.
The whistle blows again.
Goal.
Norwich’s keeper runs all the way to the halfway line to celebrate with his skipper after he sends Ush the wrong way. A ripple of applause breaks out from the small gathering of home supporters.
Last night when I couldn’t sleep for excitement and nerves I kept telling myself to make an impact. Well, I’d done that alright, and then some.
There’s barely time to kick-off before Norwich can celebrate again.
I’ve blown it. Big time. Not just for me but the team, the club, I even feel guilty for letting down my folks back in Wolston. But I’m seething with Dooley for putting me in this position.
Wait until Rob Duncan gets his match report, then he’ll have some explaining to do.
Yes, Shaw was involved in the winning goal. Yes, it was a penalty. Did he take it? Err, no. He gave it away. Come again? What was Shaw doing there in the first place?
Don’t worry, Rob. I am prepared to file my own version if it helps at the inquest.
Right now I just want to get home, go to bed, pull the duvet over my head and wake up tomorrow realising it was all a bad dream.
Except home for us is a five-hour coach journey away. I dive in the shower, change in total silence and head straight to the team coach.
No big bust ups with Dooley or the other lads. This isn’t the time or the place.
‘Sorry gaffer,’ I mutter boarding the bus. Dooley is sitting in the front row behind the driver.
The guy blanks me.
Worse, he turns his head the other way and stares out of the window as Wolston support staff load the last crates of kit onto our coach.
Five hours? It was going to feel more like ten.