Page 63 of Playing the Field
I hurry off to see what I can find out and when I return, he leaps to his feet. ‘Is it bad? Has someone been hurt?’
Ben jogs over to join us, too, concern creasing both their foreheads as they watch my eyes well up with emotion. ‘There’s a bit of a problem with the turnstiles,’ I explain.
‘Someone’s stuck?’ Dad jumps to completely the wrong conclusion.
I shake my head. ‘They’ve never had to deal with the ground being at full capacity before.’
‘Full capacity?’ Ben repeats.
I finally break into a grin. ‘And then some.’
I watch Dad’s mouth fall open as I tell them there are so many Crawford fans outside trying to buy tickets that the box office is completely overwhelmed. ‘They decided to delay the game while they work through the queue.’
Dad grips my arm. ‘Are you serious?’
‘They don’t even think they’re going to be able to get everyone in,’ I tell him, a tear finally escaping and rolling down my cheek. ‘There’s talk of sorting out some kind of livestream, so no one misses out.’
Dad’s eyes grow wet too and he turns his face up to the sky. I don’t think he wants us to see. Then he turns away from us and fist pumps the air. Twice. ‘Yes.’ Then louder. ‘Yes!’
He’s got his grin back by the time he turns to face us again and he thumps his fist against his chest, too choked up to speak. I know, come the end of the match, he’ll be trying to find a way to thank every single fan individually.
Ben heads back to the team to share the news. I watch eyebrows rise and heads turn towards the stands in disbelief. I only hope it inspires them and doesn’t make them nervous.
We later learn that on top of the three hundred and twenty Oakhampton supporters, more than four thousand former Hamcott Park fans have come to see Crawford United’s debut. Which means of the twelve thousand fans Hamcott had in the first place, around a third have come to watch our new club today. And that means they really do want this, this return to the way things used to be, and that makes us even more determined to deliver it for them.
Of course we don’t know if they will permanently switch allegiances. I’m sure some will have come purely out of curiosity today. But this is massive– massive enough that we eventually spot a news helicopter circling up in the sky above the ground. And the record-breaking attendance for a new club’s debut makes the home page of a national news site before the match has even started.
It finally kicks off over an hour late, which is tough on the players, but the fans don’t seem to have any complaints– they’re just excited to be here in such a cracking atmosphere. There are frequent shouts of ‘Come on, Crawford’ and a drummer thumps out a steady beat in between each cheer.
‘We’re going to need a team anthem,’ Cassie observes. ‘Have any of us got any song-writing skills?’
When no one puts their hand up, I suggest running a competition on the website and asking the fans to submit their ideas. You never know, one of them might produce something decent.
‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ Dad agrees.
It makes me wonder if we should also have a team mascot. It’s a bit over the top perhaps for a club at our level, but if we’re going to attract this many people on a weekly basis it doesn’t seem too crazy. Maybe a few of the kids Cassie teaches would be interested in dressing up as a phoenix for half a day. I wonder if any of the mums has any costume-making skills.
After all the drama, it takes a while for the players to settle into the game. The opening minutes are more like tiddlywinks than football as the ball pings from end to end with little in the way of quality passing, but Crawford do find their rhythm eventually.
Sadly it’s not before Oakhampton have pulled themselves together though– I guess that’s where their previous experience gives them the advantage– and a few minutes before half-time Crawford concede their first goal, an easy touch for Oakhampton after a careless error from Jacob, who instead of making a clearance from the penalty area, scuffs the top of the ball with his boot and sends it straight to the feet of the player he’s marking.
He stops dead from the shock, then closes his eyes as he berates himself for his blunder. I’m gutted for him. It’s not like Oakhampton have massively outplayed Crawford in the first half, so to end it a goal down feels really unlucky.
I can only offer up a flat smile as Ben squeezes my knee and stands up to join the team’s half-time huddle. I hope he and Cassie can restore their confidence before the game resumes. Meanwhile, Dad gets busy with his phone. I don’t think he wants to say anything at all at this stage, for fear of jinxing things.
‘They’ve processed it,’ Ben tells me when he rejoins us fifteen minutes later, leaving Cassie on the sideline so she can shout instructions to our players. ‘They’re going to come out fighting.’
And they do put up a good battle for most of the second half, with the midfielders chasing down every ball and Craig getting two shots on target within minutes of each other. But neither has enough power to find its way past the Oakhampton goalie and Craig reels away in frustration both times, cursing as he rakes his fingers through his hair.
I scan the crowd whenever there’s a break in the action, still marvelling at how vast it is. I try to gauge the mood. If this were Hamcott Park we were watching, some of the fans would likely be slating their own team. But perhaps because Crawford’s so new and the expectation isn’t there yet, they just keep urging our players to go for it.
Sadly, though, this half becomes a mirror of the first, with opportunities missed and the opposition slipping through our defence in the closing minutes to score their second goal. It brings three of our players to their knees– with so little time left on the clock, they know there’s no coming back from this.
The game dips in energy, with Oakhampton not trying too hard to score a third goal and Crawford not trying too hard to stop them. I think most of our players have run themselves ragged to the point where they’re completely out of steam.
Cassie decides to use all five of our substitutions, not because she thinks fresh legs will save us, but to give some of our reserves the chance to say they participated in the team’s debut game. They do engineer one last surge forward, but ultimately nothing comes of it.
At the final whistle, I watch Craig’s chin dip to his chest. Elliot puts his face in his hands and Nico purses his lips and shakes his head. I imagine, like me, they’re feeling the score doesn’t fairly reflect all the effort they put in.
