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"This is it lads," he said. "This is the one we’ve been waiting for."
I looked at him blankly. I knew what he was going to say, I’d heard it all before. How we had to do it for the fans. How we had to do it for the team. How we had to do it for ourselves. We didn’t need this, we were ready for it.
"Just go out there and play like you know you can play. I know you can win it, you know, deep down inside, that you can win it, so go out there and win it!"
I looked at the others. I could see they were nervous. Not surprising really, this was the biggest day of their lives. Come to think about it, it was probably the biggest day of my life, certainly in footballing terms and as soon as this thought came into my mind I started getting a bit jittery. It had been a long time since I’d been this nervous. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever being this nervous before a game. The closest I’d ever been was all the way back at the start...
It was half past two on the first Saturday of the season, and I was sat in the dressing room at the Withdean, waiting to go out for the final warm-up before the game. Normally before matches I was a picture of coolness, but today was different. Today I was a bag of nerves. OK, it wasn’t exactly the biggest match in the world. It was Brighton versus Brentford on the first day of the Second Division season. There were no TV cameras, there were barely any photographers, and not a great deal of people in general.
But I was still nervous. I’d never played a full, competitive match before, only a few games for the reserves at the back end of last season and meaningless friendlies in pre season, which hadn’t gone well at all. Defeats against Wolves, Cheltenham, Farnborough, AFC Wimbledon and Kettering were only compounded by the fact we managed to score a massive two goals in all of those matches, both courtesy of my left boot. However, a solitary win, ironically against Wimbledon, did give us hope that we could at least have a decent season, and not the relegation battle that some of the gloom merchants were predicting.
As I was just about to go out onto the pitch, Mick came over to me. Mick Coleman, the new Brentford manager. He’d taken over after Wally Downes was sacked over the summer after a bottom half finish to last season, and a bit of a disagreement with the chairman.
"You alright?" he asked. "Only you look a bit funny."
"Oh yeah, I’m fine. Great."
"Ah, don’t worry about it. Everyone’s gonna be nervous before their first game, it’s only natural. I was nervous as hell before my first game, but I did alright. Actually, come to think about it, I got sent off for slapping some Herbert round the head, and I got released later that season. But you’ve got nothing to worry about, you’ll be fine."
English Second Division vs Brighton and Hove Albion (a)
So the day I had been waiting for for as long as I could remember had finally come. I was going to have played professional football, and I'd kick off my career away to the favourites for the Second Division title. As if that didn't make it hard enough, we had our main goal threat, Kevin O'Connor, out through an injury he picked up in the friendly against Kettering, and wasn't even fit enough for the bench. Mark Peters came in for him, but since he was previously kept out of the team by Leon Constantine, who'd had an awful pre-season, our chances didn't look great.
However, we had a good blend of experience at all sorts of levels. Loan signings Gary Naysmith and Philippe Christanval had played international football, and Jamie Fullarton had bags of experience in the Scottish Premier Division, so we had players who knew all the tricks.
However, the wonderous debut I'd dreamed about didn't happen in the first half, which had I not been playing in, I'd have fallen asleep. Constantine had a shot a good few yards wide of the post, and that was pretty much it, apart from an injury to our skipper Michael Dobson, who was replaced by former Arsenal and Celtic defender Scott Marshall.
It got better after the half time break though, mainly because Brighton showed why they were in the First Division last season. Apart from a long range shot from Constantine, and a cross from the left wing I swung in which just missed Peters' head, we were on the back foot with Paul Kitson and Graham Barrett causing us all sorts of problems at the back. Thankfully for us, Leo Roget was playing brilliantly in our back three, and when they did get in behind us, Paul Smith was looking unbeatable between the sticks.
In the end it finished goalless. Not how I'd dreamed it, but it could have been a great deal worse.
"Did you see Leo miss that open goal?" I burst out laughing.
"Oh God yeah! I couldn’t play properly, I was all over the place laughing at him. But then again, you didn’t do too much better yourself, did you?" He gave me a funny look.
"Oi! I’ll have less of that thank you very much."
"Well, you missed that time when I set you up..."
"Well...erm...that wasn’t my fault. You put too much pace on it, didn’t ya?"
"Too much pace...you’re having a laugh! You just fluffed it over the bar." He was starting to look a bit uncomfortable.
"I did NOT fluff it. And anyway, it bounced funny just before..."
"Too much pace, funny bounces... You’ve got an excuse for everything, ain’t ya? Anyway, I was thin...oh shi...this is my stop. I’ll give you a call later, yeah?"
"Yeah, you can tell me how you get on with Beth."
"I told you before, it’s nothing like that."
"Yeah right, I’ve seen the way you look at her..."
"You’re an idiot, you know that? See you later mate"
"Yeah, laters."
Great, it’s raining, I thought. I went to check my bag. It wasn’t there.
"Bloody typical," I muttered under my breath. "The only time I don’t bring it..." I stopped when I realised I was talking out loud, and hurried off down the road. I looked down at my watch. I was late. She’ll have a field day with this, I thought. She always does, although I had someone else to deal with first...
"Nick!"
"Matt! Alright? How’s it going?"
"Oh, you know, I’m always good. Listen, what you up to now?"
"Er, I’m just going home. Just had training."
"Oh yeah?" he said, in an uninterested tone of voice. "How’d it go?"
"Fine, fine. We had a practice match, and Leo...erm, you know Leo, don’t you?”
"Nope."
"Oh well, anyway, he had an open goal, and he tried to be all clever and spooned it over the top." It was here I realised he wasn’t listening.
"Anyway," he said, "What you doing later? I’ve got this sweet little party lined up. It’s gonna be so cool. What d’ya say?"
"Sorry mate, I’d love to, it’s just that I’ve already said that I’d help Beth out with her coursework, you know? It’s in on Friday, and she’s not got much done yet, so I said..."
"Oh come on Nick. She’s just using you to get through all her school stuff. She’s not interested in being your friend, or whatever it is you say you are..."
"You always do this, always slagging here off. What did she ever do to you?"
"And you always do that."
"What?"
"Jump straight in to defend her. She doesn’t give a tóss about you."
"Yeah, says you..."
"No, says her."
"You what?"
"The other night, when someone was asking here about school. She was bragging that she didn’t have to do anything, you’d do it for her. She was boasting how she has you right round here little finger. Face it Nick, she don’t give a stuff about you."
"No, no, she wouldn’t say that...you’re just jealous."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me! You’re jealous because she likes me, and no-one gives a tóss about you!"
"You stupid little pr*ck. Sod you then. You wanna go on deluding yourself, then fine. Don’t come crying to me when it all ends in tears."
And that was it. I never spoke to him again after that. One stupid little argument and I’d lost one of my best friends. But what he said got me thinking. What if he was telling the truth? What if she was just using me? No, she wouldn’t do that. Or would she? I had to know the truth, and decided that tonight was the time. I was going to bite the bullet, and find out once and for all.
After trudging up the stairs for what seemed like an eternity, I finally got to the eighth floor, and was home. Home. It wasn’t all that great in some respects, but I was perfectly happy there. Sure, the rooms were a bit small, and the bathroom was so miniscule, it was almost non-existant. And yes, there were stains on one of the walls from where people upstairs had a washing machine start leaking. But it was home, and I liked it there.
“What time do you call this?” she asked.
“Oh, come on Mum, I’m not that…” I glanced down at my watch. “Well, I guess I am quite late. Sorry ‘bout that, got held up after training, and the bus was late, and…and…”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say. I’ll just go get your dinner out the oven. You’re lucky that you got here this soon, I was just about to give up on you, and throw it away.”
She passed the plate to me.
“Erm…thanks Mum.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, no, nothing. I was just thinking of something else.”
I was lying. It was another pizza. While I don’t normally have a problem with pizzas, my mum’s idea of a thin and crispy pizza is to leave it in the oven until the edges go black. Very crispy indeed, although I had something far worse to deal with than an over-cooked dinner.
“You shouldn’t be eating that,” she said.
My sister. A combination of the most annoying person you know and the most devious one made her one of the people you’d least like to be stuck in a lift with. And I had to live with her.
“How would you know?”
“Well, we were doing this thing in Food Tech, right?”
“Right”
“And we had to work out what the calories in different meals were, right?”
“Yeah”
“So I did…”
I couldn’t be bothered to listen to her rabbit on about some rubbish that she’d more than likely just made up. And besides, all I had to do was respond every so often with a…
“Yeah”
…and then she’d be perfectly happy talking away. She’d probably move on to how her French teacher’s got it in for her, and what happened today in French…
“Yeah”
…even though she’s only got two French lessons a week, but there’s always a new story every day when I get home…
“Yeah”
…and each one is more brilliant and more fantastic than the last. Then she’d move on to someone in her class, and how they’re a loser, because they got their bag off a market…
“Yeah”
…or they have a coat with four stripes down the sleeves, and it ‘wants’ to be an Adidas coat.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah”
“So what have I been talking about?”
“Your French teacher?”
“Yeah, so anyway…”
Oh, and then there’s the classic. How her friend is an idiot. She always went on about how her friend was an idiot, and got bullied by her parents into doing things she didn’t want to do. In fact, she seemed to hate almost all of her friends…
“Yeah”
…but never really thought that she should actually go and get some friends that she did like. Then again, in a way I could think of a reason I didn’t like most of my friends, but apart from that, they were fine.
“Yeah”
“Yeah what? No-one said anything.”
“Er…just yeah. Anyway, I’m off out now. Going round Beth’s to help her with her coursework.”
“Yeah, she’s upstairs doing some homework, so I’m not sure whether...”
“No, that’s why I’m here. I came to help her with it.”
“Oh right. Well, go right up then. You know the way”
“OK, thanks Mrs Woodley.”
It was a nice house. It had a very cosy, homely kind of feel to it, and was obviously lived in quite a lot. The sofa had slight bumps in it where Beth’s dad sat when he watched the TV, and lots of little ornaments that Beth’s mum had collected for years. The walls on the stairs were covered with photos of Beth, taken at various ages. There were pictures from a holiday from when she was still in nappies, quite a few from when she went through her ‘horse phase’, as she called it, and a fair few of the photos contained me at some age.
We’d been friends for as long as we could both remember. We first met in the local pub’s beer garden, and spent the entire afternoon playing in a giant shoe. Then a couple of years later we were put in the same class at school. She got dead excited about it, but I had no idea why. I couldn’t remember her, and I still can’t remember our first meeting to this day. My memory was never my strong point.
All through school we got people saying we were going out with each other. I always denied it, of course, but she’d pretend it was true, mainly because she knew how much it embarrassed me. I’d say to people ‘No, we’re just friends,’ but she’d then say ‘How can you say that? Doesn’t our love mean anything to you?’
And it was all a big joke. But over the years, I began to realise that I wanted it to be true. However, it never looked like she wanted me. I’d never bucked up the courage to actually do something about it; I was always scared she’d reject me. Besides, I’d rather be just friends than nothing to her, and I didn’t want tot do anything to jeopardise our friendship.
Unfortunately though, time was running out. In a few more months, she’d finish college and go off to university, while I’d be off round the country playing football. We’d hardly ever see each other any more, and I was terrified that we might drift apart.
So I decided the only thing to do was to tell her how I felt, and that night was as good as any.
“Come in Nick,” she said impatiently. I entered the room with a puzzled look on my face.
“How did you...?”
“I heard you talking to Mum downstairs. What took you so long?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing. How’s it going? The coursework, I mean.”
“Er, fine, I guess. Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, fine. Couldn’t be better,” I said hurriedly. I thought she was starting to pick up on my nervousness. “Shall we get down to it? The work, I mean.”
“OK then. You see, so far I’ve got...”
Just sitting there watching her explain what she was doing made me realise what I had to do. Just looking at her, her perfect flowing brown hair, her beautiful, deep green eyes, her...
“So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“The idea for the conclusion? Do you think that’s how I should do it?”
“Yeah, it sounds like a great idea, yeah.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. Thanks.”
I suddenly felt this great feeling inside me. I knew this was my chance.
“Erm...Beth?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got something I want to tell you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s about you and me.”
“Yeah?”
“Er...yeah. You see, I’ve been doing some thinking recently. I mean, we’re really good friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Well, I was thinking, and I think, no, I know that I want to be more than just...”
“Yeah”
“...good friends.” I stopped immediately when I realised what was happening.
I’d told her how I felt, and she’d completely ignored me. That didn’t help my confidence one tiny bit, but I knew I had to do this, and this would be my best chance.
“I was just talking about us.”
“Oh yeah? What about us?”
“Well, we’re really good friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, of course! You know we are, we always have been.”
“Yeah, I know, it’s just that I was thinking a while ago, and I finally admitted to myself something I’d know for a long time.”
“Which was?”
“That I -“
“Oh sorry,” said Beth’s mum, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I’m off round to Jane’s house for a while.”
“OK Mum, see you later.”
“Oh, by the way, there’s some cake downstairs that was for your father, but he didn’t want it. He was complaining about his stomach again, and I said he should go to the doctor to have it looked at, but he said…sorry, I’m supposed to be going. Oh, and a James called for you Beth, but I told him you were busy.”
“OK, thanks Mum.”
“Bye Mrs Woodley.” As soon as she left, I turned back to Beth. “James?”
“Oh, he’s this guy from work. He asked me to go to the cinema with him to see that Matrix film. You know, the new one? He was probably just checking to see if I’m still coming”
“And are you?”
“Of course! You haven’t seen him! He’s gorgeous, and he’s so funny! You’d really like him, he’s really into football too! I’ve been hoping he’d ask me out for ages.”
“Great,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I’m really pleased for you.”
English Second Division vs Sheffield Wednesday (h)
At least after that little 'incident' I had a good excuse to avoid Beth, at least for a few days anyway. After a hard match away to one of the promotion favourites, we had to follow that up with a midweek visit from fellow favourites Sheffield Wednesday. After enduring a few torrid seasons, the Owls found themselves in Division Two and were looking to bounce straight back up to the First Division again, and this match meant that I could use the excuse of "Oh sorry, I've got training" repeatedly all week, and I did.
As far as our team was concerned, we were still without key striker Kevin O'Connor, as well as captain Michael Dobson who dislocated his shoulder in the previous match, whose injury saw a start for Scott Marshall in his place. Apart from that it was an unchanged lineup, which saw me keep my place just behind the strikers for my home debut.
Unfortunately we got off to pretty much the worst possible start. After Matthew Hamshaw swung a cross in from the Wednesday right flank, the referee gave a foul against Philippe Christanval for a push on Alan Quinn. It certainly didn't look like a foul from where I was stood, but the referee gave it, and David Burrows thumped the penalty past Paul Smith.
Soon after that we had a great chance to level the game at one each, but after a bit of good link up play between myself and Leon Constantine, my shot hit the outside of the post and went out for a goal kick. With the goalkeeper totally beaten, it was disappointing not to see the net ripple, but gladly we would see that before half time, although not through entirely orthodox methods.
After a misplaced throw in by Steven Haslam, Leo Roget picked up the ball just inside our half, and knocked a long ball towards Mark Peters and Constantine, but instead somehow found the back of the net after Kevin Pressman completely lost the flight of the ball, and allowed Roget to score his first goal for Brentford, something we were all pleased to see.
The second half was just as action packed as we started to press on, looking for a goal to give us the lead. Just after the hour mark Martin Rowlands gave me the ball just on the edge of the penalty area, and with an opportunity to have a shot, I tried to curl one into the top right corner, only to be denied by an excellent save by Pressman. The resulting corner caused chaos in the Wednesday penalty area as Peters saw a header hit the bar, and Eddie Hutchinson's effort from the rebound went just wide of the left post.
However, all our good work was nearly for nothing because with ten minutes left when Jon Beswetherick crossed from the left and Simon Donnelly hit the post with a low shot, before Paul Smith smothered the rebound.
We continued to look for what would surely be a winner, but it never quite came. I had a couple of long range efforts either comfortably saved or just off target, and Constantine could have scored after being put through by Jamie Fullarton, but it just wasn't to be. However it was a personal success as I was chosen as man of the match which, with it being my home debut, was especially pleasing.
Putting The Buzz Back Into The Bees... 
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