Chapter 6

Coach Carter gathered the boys round him, “Ok we are going to rotate through all three sets of disciplines, each of you will get marked by myself and my two assistants, we will grade you on a scale of 1-5 for each of the 6 disciplines as well as the physical and also how I think you will fit into the team. After all of the marks are collated, the top 6 boys will be offered a spot in the reserves team. We are looking for balanced players to play in the midfield, you need the skills to be able to drop back into defense when needed but also the ability to push forward and go for goal when you have a chance. I am looking for team players, someone who will put the team first, I do not want people who will hold the ball and always get the glory themselves. You may be in reserves team, but that team is there to allow us to move you up to the first team if needed, remember that”.

“Ok now I want each of you to pick a partner and I want you to spread out about 15 meters away from each other and passing back and forth to start with.”

#

After another hour spent kicking, passing, heading, tackling, dribbling and shooting Max was so glad to hear Coach Carter call everyone together and tell them that the trials were over. Max had spent the last hour concentrating on perform to the best of his abilities and consequently had not actually been able to see how well everyone else had done, he hoped he had done enough to make the team, but deep down new that he had given his best.

“Ok guys” started the Coach, “that’s the hard stuff over with, for you at least. My assistants and I now need to sit down and go through our scores and work out who has made the team. If you will all head to the changing rooms, shower and change and we will post the names on the notice board in about 20 mins. Off you go.”

The group of boys who headed back into the changing room certainly looked different from the group who had left it 90 mins earlier, this time round they were all tired and muddy, whilst the earlier silence had been due to nervousness, this time the obvious cause was exhaustion. They all trudged into the changing rooms and this time as they all showered and dressed the banter came back. Wise-cracks abounded as one of the players was describing how another had attempted a bicycle kick from a pass towards the goal and the resulting effort was a set of flailing legs that got nowhere near the ball and final result was one player down in the box winded and 4 others trying to keep standing whilst laughing their heads off.

After they had all dressed the boys slowly wandered out into the corridor outside the gym where some of the people who had hung around to watch the tryouts were waiting, among them Chris and Adam who were talking rather animatedly, with arms gesturing in all directions.

“Oh I can’t believe I missed that” said Adam, “he completely missed the ball?”

“Yes and ended up flat on his back” returned Chris who was laughing out loud.

Chris began once again to describe the incident with a few derogatory comments and the skills on display.

“Come on guys” said Max “give the guy a break, the whole point of these tryouts is to find out who has what skills, not everyone can do a bicycle kick like you Chris”.

“True True, but it was still funny” said Chris who reduced his laughing to a giggle and then simply a smile. A commotion down the corridor drew Chris’s who looked back over Max’s shoulder, “Here comes the Coach with the list, come on Max.”

Chris had Max turned around and pushing through the mass of bodies that were already clustered round the board, it was a mass of moving bodies and Chris and Max moved separately through towards the noticeboard. In the end, with his extra height, Chris was able to get a look at the list before Max was close to it he watched Chris scan this list and then turn towards him. From the glum look on his face Max already knew the news, but even so the simple “Sorry bro you didn’t make it.” that Chris spoke really brought reality home.

“Oh” said Max, who whilst still not too confident about his skills felt that he had done enough to get on the team and was disappointed. He never even resisted as Chris turned him round and they moved back through the throng, they reached Adam a few seconds later who asked the inevitable question.

“Did you make it?”

Max was just gearing himself up to give some self confidence inspiring comment to Adam when Chris butted in. “Of course he made it, it looks like the Coach is going to put him into the right side of midfield.”

“Well maybe if I practice over the summer then I can try out next …. ” began Max and then he trailed off as realisation dawned on him as he processed the comment that Chris had made. “I’m made it?”

“Of course you did, I thought you were the best player out there! Coach would have to have been blind to not put you in the squad” said Chris.

“You…. You….. YOU…..” began Max, who then simply tackled Chris, attempting to take him to the ground to pay him back for the joke. There scuffle whilst not particularly frantic drew attention from down the corridor.

“YOU TWO STOP MESSING AROUND!”. The voice boomed out down the corridor, the boys quickly separated and turned to see the Coach standing there looking at them. “Now is not the time for high spirits, you have made the team Max, but you now need to prove your worth. It’s the first time I’ve had two brothers on my team and I hope that you are not going to cause me problems and make me regret my decision?”

“No Sir” they both answered sheepishly, grins just about successfully hidden.

“Ok” he said to them with a small nod in their direct, he then addressed the wider group. “Well done to those of you who made the reserves squad, to those who didn’t thank you for coming and trying out. Some of you only just missed out on the squad so please tryout next year and you never know. Well that’s it, time for you lot to be getting home, I will see squad members on Friday for our first practice session.”

The three boys then turned and headed out of the school and turned towards home, the good natured abuse passing between them as they walked down the road towards home.

#

The mood in the house that evening was celebratory, Sue and David were very pleased that Max had made it into the reserves team, they knew he was interested in football but until now had shown no inclination to play it seriously and they had been concerned that Max would always see himself stuck in his brother’s shadow if he couldn’t find some area to excel in. In the end after Max had related the events of the tryouts, at least 3 times, preparations for dinner had been long forgotten and David nipped out for Fish and Chips, something the family did not have that often. Adam stayed for dinner after a short phone call to his parents letting them know he was still at Max’s.

The talk continued into the evening as both boys began to elaborate on their future within the football world. It began with each of them describing their move into the School First team and eventually to scoring the goal that won them the School league cup. Chris then talked about playing for the local Amateur side, Max upped the ante to running out in the Dark Blue and Light Blue quarters of Wanderers, Chris then told the story of how he scored the winning goal in the last minute of the FA Cup Final, Max then capped it all off with him hoisting the World Cup as England Captain. Adam spent much of the time laughing at the wild exploits the two brothers were describing, however Sue and David sat on the sofa quietly enjoying watching the two brother describing so passionately their ambitions on the football pitch and wondering how far either might go. David eventually drove Adam home as it was getting late and when he arrived home despatched the two brothers to bed as it was still a school night. Max lay in bed that night for some time before he fell asleep and his mind was full of the thoughts of football and the future.

Chapter 5

Max ran out of the changing room in his football kit, like the rest of the boys at the school he had one set of the schools prescribed kit but they all wore the replica shirts of their favourite teams, after all whenever they played in teams they had blue or red bibs that covered the shirts anyway. So Dark blue and Light blue quarters were the order of the day with Cousins 7 on the back. As he arrived at the pitch he could see a small group gathered round the imposing figure of Coach Carter and after a quick sprint to the center circle he joined the throng as Coach Carter began to talk.

“Ok this is going to be a standard set of tryouts for the reserves team. We will start off with a number of physical tests, those of you not making the level will be allowed to continue, however it will count against you and you will be expected to come up to the required levels to keep your place in the reserves. First we are going to start with a little run, 4 laps round the pitch, thats outside the goals and the corner flags, no cheating, for those of you who are interested that’s 1.5 km and you need to do it in 10 mins, then I want 100 star jumps and finally 20 push up and then we’ll see how good you are with a football. Any Questions??”

As Max looked round he could see that it was groans that were on everyones lips rather than questions, whilst this shouldn’t be too bad for him, having to prove his soccer skills after this run would be tough. The faces around him were mostly familiar, some boys from his year that he knew well and others that he at least new their names, a number from the year above that were obviously trying out again after failing at the initial test at the beginning of the year and a few faces he didn’t recognise at all. In total there were about 25 boys all vying for what Chris had told him were really 4 spots in the team.

“Ok lets get this started then” said the Coach “Edge of the pitch at the halfway line please.”

Everyone jogged over to the edge of the pitch and formed a small group, some at the front getting ready to start their watches so they could monitor their time, Max mentally slapped himself on the head, he had left his watch in his locker, too late to worry about it now.

“And go” said the Coach.

With that they were off, Max gave everyone a second to get a move on before he set off, he could already see ahead of him the pushing and shoving as people tried to manoever to get some free space, in fact as he watched there was a clash of ankles and suddenly one of the runners went down. Max didn’t even think about it but bent down and helped him up.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

“Yes I think so”

“Can you go on?”

“Yes, lets go”

It was only a few seconds but when the two of them took off again the rest of the runners were spread out, some already running behind the goal. Max knew that the pace he would run would see him inside the 10 minute mark and also that many of the others were starting too fast, so he didn’t panic. He quickly realised that the runner who had fallen over was easily keeping up pace with him so thankfully there was no obvious injury, it would have been unfair to lose this oppotunity in the melee that had been the start. As Max rounded the second corner flag on the first lap he upped his pace slightly to push himself and see if he could make up the lost time at the start. Coming down the far side of the pitch he settled into his comfortable running style and slowly began to catch the main group of runners ahead of him.

He drew level with the main pack of runners half way round the second lap and slowly moved past them, he could see that many of them were already running along with their mouthes opening trying to get as much air into their lungs as possible. This gave Max a real confidence boost and he moved past the group and began to look to the people left ahead of him. There were now only 4 people ahead of him, 2 of whom had obviously gone out too fast too early and he could see them starting to struggle already, the other 2 were obviously good runners and Max didn’t expect to catch them.

By the time Max began the final lap he had only 2 runners ahead of him, in fact the two leaders and he had already lapped 5 runners who were obviously well off the pace. The gap between Max and the 2nd runner was only a few meters and Max knew he would catch him, although whether he could kick on and away from him was another question. The final runner was about 10 meters further down the run. Max pulled up on the should of the 2nd place runner and then past him he kept running for a few seconds more and when he looked back he could see that the runner was not keeping up with him, but falling behind him. Max could easily see the back of the runner ahead and he was determined to catch him, he picked up his pace again and slowly drew closer, however as they rounded the final corner and headed back towards the end of the run the leader glanced over his shoulder and saw Max coming and also increased his pace. Max pushed himself further and he was catching him, however in the end it wasn’t enough they both crossed the end of the run, Max only a couple of steps behind the other runner and they both dropped to the ground side by side.

“Well done lads” the Coach piped up “Rest for a few minutes whilst the rest finish the distance.”

Max looked up and saw some of the lapped runners only now beginning the final lap and could see the look of resignation on their faces as they realised that they probably would not make the required time set by the Coach. Max glanced over to his rival and extended a hand.

“Max” he said.

“David” David replied, “That was a tough run, I thought you were going to catch me there at the end”

“Me too, though exactly why we were racing like that, at the end of the day we just needed to beat 10 mins rather than each other”

“True True” David said, “although we do get a bit of a rest before we have to start again”.

As the two of the then sat there getting their breath back, more and more runners finished and slumped down on the grass next to them. As Max looked round he spotted the runner who had fallen at the start lying down, he was glad that he had finished and from the way Coach Carter suddenly clicked his stop watch and then started noting down the names of the next set of finishers, it was obvious that everyone up to that point had made the cutoff time the Coach had set.

“OK up you get time for some star jump” called the Coach, this time the groans were audible as everyone dragged themselves to their feet. “Now 100 star jumps as I call them out, if you can’t keep up sit down”.

The Coach gave them a couple of seconds to space and then began to call out.

“1″

“and 2″

“and 3″

The speed at which he called out made it easy for him to keep an eye on the boys, not too fast at the end of the day this was a game that demanded endurance more than short speed and with that in mind he kept the pace slower than the usual pace that a more aerobic workout would demand.

“98″

“99″

“100 and rest”

Max slumped to the ground tired but not overly so, he could see that most of the other candidates were struggling, at least 4 that he had seen hadn’t finished the star jumps. He was confident that he could finish the push-ups and then it was just a question of showing off his skills with a football.

5 minutes later with the push-ups behind them the boys were split into 3 groups, Max looked around him and could see the obvious groupings that the Coach had made, he was among the other boys who had finished first in the run, the second group contained the next set of runners and the final group contained all of those who had either failed to finish the run, the star jumps or the push ups.

“Ok we have you in three groups, Group 1″ as the Coach indicated the group containing Max ” will go over to that side of the pitch and will begin with dribbling and passing, Group 2″ the group who had Max though had all completed the required physical stuff as well, “far corner of the pitch, heading and volleying and Group 3 over by the goal for tackling and shooting. Off you go”. With that the boys all headed off in the required directions, Coach Carter seemed to following their Group, whilst 2 of his assistants followed the others.

Chapter 4

It was a small matter of 3 classes and 1 mid-morning break later that Max and Adam were now sat at the table in the school dining room eating, what the school liked to call lunch. However the discussion that had started with the announcement before school was still continuing.

“Come on Max, you know that you should do it”

“I don’t know” said Max “I play football with Chris all the time and he’s better than I am”

“Yes, but he’s older, you really need to try for the team, no one from our year has made it into the first team ever.”

“I’m not trying out for the first team” Max pointed out, “this is just the reserves.”

“Once the Coach sees you, you will get picked”

This argument had been going on all morning, Max had never bowed to peer pressure before, but the concerted efforts of Chris and Adam along with the fact that deep down he loved playing football, were certainly battling against his fears that really he wasn’t good enough. However for once he insecurities were losing and in the end driven off long enough for him to make the decision.

“Ok Ok give it a rest will you. I’ll try out for the team and we will see, but I really don’t think that I’m good enough.”

With that the conversation returned to the more mudane matters of homework and whether they were going to get together that evening to study after the football tryouts. A few minutes later the bell rang and the two of them threw away their wrappers from their lunches and headed off towards their maths class.

#

“So x + 2y = 6 and 2x + y = 9″ said Mrs Trehearn, “how are we going to solve this problem class?”

She stared out across the see of faces searching, looking for the spark that someone might actually be able to solve this one, however as she looked all she could see was a mass of blank expressions and that was never a good sign. She had been teaching maths for over 20 years and whilst some of the methods of teaching had changed the general principles were unchanged, some years it seemed that the students she taught “got it” other years it was a struggle, this class were certainly not the worst she had ever taught, however she had yet to see any really make any great leaps as yet, she was still hopeful though. As her eyes swept to the far left of the class they alighted on the face of Max and suddenly she dared to hope, she could see the spark, could see that he was almost there, could see his brain working. Her experience alone moved her eyes on, she had made the mistake in the past of jumping on a student when she could see he was close to a breakthrough, the sudden pressure of the whole of the class looking at them as they were trying to make that final connection was usually too much and the whole process was disrupted, she would give him a few more seconds and then see if he could get it without an prodding. As her eyes moved again over the see of faces, this time not searching but simply observing, a sudden movement from the left turned her head and she saw Max with his hand up, although the nervous look on his face was plain to see, in fact she couldn’t remember if Max had ever put his hand up before this time.

“Yes Max” she said “do you know how to do it?”

Max couldn’t believe it, he was looking at the expression and he was sure that he had done something similar before, whilst he was trying to rack his brain, Mrs Trehearn’s eyes met his and for a second he started to panic that she might ask him for the answer, but her eyes moved on after a split-second. He looked back at the problem and then suddenly it clicked and he realised he knew how to solve it. He had never before put his hand up in Maths, he had never had the confidence in his answers and this was no different, however as he debated whether to put his hand he suddenly realised that Mrs Trehearn was looking back at him and asking whether he knew how to do the equation. It took Max a few seconds to realise that she hadn’t just picked him at random, hadn’t decided to drag him to the front to see if he could do it, as he glanced up the fact that his arm was raised surprised him.

“Err I think so Mrs Trehearn” Max stammered.

“Ok Max, come up and put your answer on the board.” Mrs Trehearn responded with a smile.

Max arose from his seat with some nervousness, he was sure that his answer was right, however that didn’t mean anything and the last thing he needed was to get this badly wrong. He arrived at the board and Mrs Trehearn handed him a piece of chalk and he started writing and talking.

“If x + 2y = 6 then x = 6 – 2y” he started.

“If we replace the x in this equation here”

“Subsitute” Mrs Trehearn interjected.

“Sorry, If we substitute the x in this equation we get 12 – 4y + y = 9. So if we simplify that we get -3y = -3?”

Max suddenly looked confused and thought he had got it wrong, but it was only a brief second before he saw it.

“So y = 1 and if we substitute for y = 1 we get x + 2 = 6 and x = 4?”

He turned his head towards Mrs Trehearn, half expecting her to tell him that he had got it wrong, but when he saw the smile on her face his confidence returned as he knew he had the answer right.

“Well done Max” she said and then as Max returned to his seat “Does everyone understand how Max solved that?” she asked. With that comment, the smile on Max’s face grew and as he sat down and looked around at the number of people who still looked confused his confidence was in full flow. By the end of the class Max felt his arm should have been tired from the number of times he raised it to answer questions and had returned to the board twice to put up answers. At the end of the class as she dismissed them, Mrs Trehearn asked Max if he would stay behind for a moment.

“Max” she began, once the rest of the class had filed out, “well done today, you really seemed to grasp the concept and thank you for raising your hand.”

“Thanks Mrs Trehearn, it just popped into my head and I could see how to solve the problem, once I had worked out the first one, the rest were obvious.”

“Excellent, well keep it up and you will do fine and make sure to raise your hand more often, if you think the answer is right then it probably is right, don’t worry if you get it wrong, most people aren’t right all the time, but if you don’t put your hand up and try you won’t know and the other teachers and I don’t know that you are understanding.”

“Ok” said Max, somewhat embarassed at the attention, “I’ll try more often.”

“That’s all anyone can ask, now run along and get to your next class”.

Max grabbed his bag and headed out the door and into the corridor, where he found Adam waiting for him.

“What did Mrs Trehearn want” he asked.

“Oh just, some stuff about me putting my hand up if I know the answer and not being afraid to give a wrong answer.”

“I thought you were getting more homework or lines or something, that doesn’t sound too bad”

“Come on we haven’t got time to hang around, double History is next and it’s the other side of the building”

With that the two of the them moved off down the corridor, not exactly running as that was forbidden inside the buildings, but more of a quick march which managed to get them to their destination just before the late bell rang. They hurried to their seats, dragged out their books and began to listen to their history teach drone on about the American war of Independence.

History had never been one of Max’s strong points, he could never hold all the dates and events in his head, but for some reason today, his confidence was still on a high following Mrs Trehearn’s comments that he raised his hand for a couple of the questions the teacher posed and eventually he was asked and he was happy to discover that his answer about the Boston Tea Party was correct. He raised his hand a number of other times during the class, but each time someone else answered, however he was surprised to discover that aside from one answer he had, all his other were in fact correct. When the final bell of the day rang Max actually found that the double History lesson had been interesting when in the past it had dragged whilst he daydreamed about getting out of school.

As he left the classroom, Adam clapped him on the shoulder and said, “So off to tryouts?”

“You bet” Max responded with a self confidence that had built all day and probably would have suprised him another time. “You coming along” he asked.

“I don’t know, I really ought to get started on the History assignment. Although I do want to see you putting the coach in his place. I’m coming.”

“Adam, I’m not going to be making the first team here, they are only looking for some backups for the reserve squad anyway.”

“Well I still think that you are better than you give yourself credit.”

“Ok Ok, I get the message” said Max,”anyway I need to go get changed, I’ll see you later”

Max turned and left Adam standing at the entrance to the changing rooms and went in, it seemed strange to him and initially he couldn’t put his finger on why, but as he started to change into his gym  kit it hit him. He was in here with only a few other people changing, usually the room was packed with people laughing, joking and making a racket, now there was silence with an obvious nervous under-current.  Max immediately put it out of his mind and started to focus on the try-outs.

Chris had met him in the afternoon break and had managed to give him some details of how the tryouts who go, firstly there would be a set of physical tests, star jumps, push ups and running.  Everyone who made it that far would go through to skills tests, dribbling round cones, crossing, shooting and penalties among them.  Adam was happy that he could cope with the physical aspects as he had a habit of of practising with Chris and also doing the training he did as well.  He knew he could do the skills they were asking him to display, he simply wasn’t sure that he was up to the level that the coach was going to ask for.  As he ran out onto the pitch along with the 20 or so other boys trying out for the team he could feel the familiar sensation of butterflies in his stomach, however for the first time in his life he shook his head and just thought to himself, “Why am I worried, this is something I want to do for fun, if I’m not good enough then I’ll just go on playing football with Chris, it’s not something i need to worry about.” With that a sense of relief washed over him and the nervous feeling left him.

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