The National Cup

'I’ve just met their manager off the bus,' says Mr Moss, his voice quivering, 'and I’m telling you now, lads: they think they’ve won this. “You’ve done well just getting this far,” he says to me, “a small town team like you.” Now it’s not often you’ll hear me swear, so here’s a one-off: let’s show the Cockney bastard.'

The changing room smells of Deep Heat and Lynx Africa, of old mud and damp. Our boots – our Predators and F-50s, our Total 90s and Mercurial Vapours – lie stuffed with soggy newspaper on the cold stone floor. We tie plastic tape around our socks; we tighten our studs. Mr Moss continues.

'Wain, Taylor: you’re the engine room; destroy and create, destroy and create. Ewing: there are teachers in this school who don’t want you to play today. They’ve been coming up to me all week, telling me you don’t deserve it. Well, I’m standing by you – and I expect to be repaid. They think we’re small-time in Uttoxeter, these Londoners. They think we don’t know what we’re doing. Well, let’s show them.'

As we warm up, the year nine pitch has been rolled and lined, and mown in strips like the pitches on TV. Although the goals still sag in the middle, they have been repainted a brilliant white. All along the sideline nearest the school, our classmates stand to watch us: the boys with hands in pockets, the girls in their short lycra skirts.

We glance over the halfway line at our opponents. One of them, in particular, stands out. He is small and compact, and wears the captain’s armband and the number ten shirt. Struck, we watch him pass it around, break into sprints, drive it out to the left wing with the outside of his boot, but we are not unduly concerned. The warm-up world-beater is a type we have seen before; let him try it when Eggy and Wainy are standing on his ankles.

They win the toss and kick-off.

'Come on, boys!' shouts Sweaty.

'Let’s get our heads on!' shouts Wiggy.

The ball goes back to the number ten and Wainy goes straight for the welcome-to-the-game challenge. He charges in, fists clenched, all thigh and neck muscles: you would not want to be welcomed to the game by Wainy.

The number ten makes to spray it wide right, but lets it roll a little further, opens out his body, and rounds Wainy on the other side, laying it off calmly to the left-back and advancing forward.

*

The attack breaks down and the game finds its rhythm. We pass it around, giving everyone a touch. When we have possession, the wingers move wide; when the other team has it, we tighten, squeeze.

Soon, though, we find ourselves chasing the ball. It is always with the number ten. He patrols the middle of the pitch, getting it short from the defenders, before turning and passing it accurately. He is small, but swift and well-balanced, and he holds us off with vicious strength whenever we get near.

He feints past Wainy again – 'fuck's sake!' says Wainy, turning back – and slides a through-ball behind Hunty, our right-back. Their winger runs onto it, but skies his shot.

Now the shouting begins.

'Don’t give him space!'

'Stop number ten!'

'Get closer to him!'

A moment later he is on the ball again, flicking it over Eggy’s head and bounding towards our box. Fisher comes out of the defence to close him down, but before he gets there the ten laces it. It flies onto the cross-bar and behind for a goal kick.

'Sambo!' bellows Wainy's dad from the sideline. Dave is our Sunday League manager, but we hardly recognise him, his face and arms stained green from his job spraying pesticides.

Time after time he outmuscles us, outruns us, outskills us, outsmarts us. It is like there is a forcefield around him, repelling us whenever we get near. He seems to teleport, to be always in our blind spots.

The crowd quietens. We hear the wind in the corner flags, and the afternoon traffic of the A518 over the fence. One of the girls shouts, 'Get your cock out!' Already, the first of them are getting pregnant.

We pass, run, chase, but there is a huge rolling weight in their favour. We can push back at it, hold it off, but eventually it will flatten us.

He runs though again and Wainy and Eggy sandwich him. They dive in at different times, but they are tractors to his sports car, and he leaves them behind, slipping it through to the striker who finishes past Sweaty.

Wainy is almost in tears. He is trying, but the ten’s level is scary. What does it mean if there are players this good? What does it mean for the unspoken ambition of all of us?

The ten plays out the rest of the half in the centre circle, breaking down our attacks and keeping possession; then, mercifully, the ref blows for half-time.

'I don't think I need to tell you the problem,' says Mr Moss at the side. 'Now, I've asked around and apparently he's an academy player. But I think we knew that, didn't we? Yeah, he’s with Arsenal and he's a year younger than you, actually, believe it or not. So he's a bit special, but don't see it as a bad thing. You're up against a real player here, boys, make no mistake. Someone you might be watching on telly in a few years time. So enjoy it. And let's show him what we're about. Wain, Ewing: follow him everywhere. He might lose one of you; don't let him lose both. The rest of you: you're doing fine. They're ordinary apart from him – we can get a result here. Do you believe it? I can't hear you. Good – that’s better. Now come on, lads. Come on.'

After the kick-off we pass it with purpose, keeping our shape, and Edey slips it through to Farrelly, who finishes to make it one-all.

The crowd cheers. We run to Farrelly and jump onto his back.

'They’re headshot, boys!' shouts Wiggy. 'They’re rattled!'

The ten takes it on the chest from a throw-in and without looking, volleys a diagonal out to the right-winger. Sweaty palms the resulting shot, and we come back at them.

The next time the ten gets it, Wainy manages to prize him off long enough for Edey to steal it and break.

But the ten sprints back and slides Edey from behind. He holds off Wainy and Brodie until the ref blows for a foul, and takes the free-kick quickly.

We chase him back, with the knowledge that he is human.

Then it comes to him on the edge of the box and he smashes it into the top corner.

On the sideline, Mr Moss shoves their manager and has to be held back by subs and teachers.

*

We run, we fight, but the ball seems to be always at his feet. Again and again, we find ourselves in the same relation to him: committing ourselves and having to turn back, like fire engines rushing to the wrong address.

He runs through and shoots again: it whistles past Sweaty's dive and pings in off the stanchion.

Everyone starts clapping.

Then someone at the side says, 'You should have seen him in the last round,' and the tone of the day changes. We are almost proud now that this town, with its Subway and its Woolworths, its racecourse and its biscuit factory, its Tesco Superstore and its train station, was one of his stops on the way to greatness.

We continue to chase his shadow; it continues to evade us. The last thing he does is to dribble past three of us in the centre circle, before lobbing Sweaty from thirty yards, the ball skimming off the cross-bar and behind for a goal kick.

When he is subbed, everyone claps again, and for the rest of the game we are conscious of him watching.

The match ends, and all anyone says is, 'What's his name?' Back in the changing room, we put on our shirts and trousers, our Rockports and Timberlands, our Henri Lloyd and Helly Hansen jackets. Lynx Africa is sprayed, and boot-soles banged together. We go out into the February afternoon, and we are out of the National Cup but strangely elated. As we break off, in twos and threes, and head for last lessons, the air is sickly-sweet. They are cooking at the biscuit factory.