Crack! The sound of the ball hitting the net was the signal for the away team to go crazy. They all charged to pile on top of both their goal-scorer and goalkeeper who would surely be on the back page of every national newspaper tomorrow morning. I trudged off the pitch, got changed - without even having a shower - and ran out of the dressing room without a backward glance. I couldn’t face anyone, I just wanted to be alone. I heard Walter coming down the corridor after giving his – very brief - post-match interview. He was bound to be furious, so I dived into one of the storerooms to get away from the anger that I felt surely would be coming my way.

  ‘Don’t worry kid,’ came a voice. ‘No one comes in here. It’s just me and the spare kit.’ It was Old Billy. So, this is where he hides!

  ‘Billy, I... I messed up,’ I said, holding back the tears.

  ‘I saw,’ he replied. ‘It happens. But if the rest of the team had played better, it would never have reached a shootout. Sometimes even the best players make mistakes. Mistakes when they wish the ground would open up and swallow them.’

  ‘I guess so,’ I replied. ‘But Walter, he will be so disappointed in me.’

  ‘STOP right there, Jack. There is no way Walt is disappointed in you. Losing the game, yes. But not disappointed in you. You have the talent and desire to take this club back to the top. We can do it this season. But you need to get your head down, and work harder than you ever thought possible. Inspire your mates. The ‘Accies kids’ as everyone is calling you lot. Monty, Lucas, Zac. They all look up to you. Even Dexter has said you could one day break his scoring records if you stick to it.’

  I listened to his every word and began to feel better.

  ‘If you need to sulk to get this out of your system, every time things don’t go well, then you won’t make it as a pro’ he said. ‘You need to embrace the defeat. Learn the lessons. How do you feel right now? You make sure that you never feel this way again. Practice, practice, practice. Until you can do it perfectly every single time. Make every skill automatic so you won’t even have to think what to do, it will just happen. Watch the game back when you get home and see what you could have done better during the game, then next week put it into action. Dexter still does that after every home game, even after all these years. He comes in here with me and we chat for about an hour, then he takes a copy I have recorded for him, and he goes home to watch it. In fact, I’m sure he’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘Thanks Billy’ I said. I was already feeling a lot better, still incredibly disappointed, but knowing that our priority this season was promotion to the Premier League. The FA Cup would have to wait for another season.

  ‘No problem lad,’ Billy said. ‘I’ll see you next week.’

  I left his room feeling much better. I was still gutted that we had lost, and I knew the media would not be kind to Walter, the team and probably me too. But I was going to smash training next week and we WERE going to win the next league game.

  I lay in bed that night, practicing my deep breathing techniques that always helped me relax. It was something my dad had taught me.

  ‘Whenever things feel a bit much’ he would say, ‘close your eyes, see what you want to happen. Visualize it, now breathe. Deep breathe. Go out and make it happen.’

  I will. I would, and I was going to make it happen, starting tomorrow.

  “It does not matter how slow you think you are going, as long as you keep going and don’t stop.” (Zac)

  We were back at it first thing Monday morning. The usual meeting to discuss what had happened in the previous game had been cancelled. There was a darker mood in the air. The coaches moved about quickly and refused to speak to anyone for the first hour or so. We all knew it was going to be a tough day. We were told we were doing double training sessions for the whole week. Session one had started with a fitness test – ‘doggies’. As fun as that sounds, doggies involves running between two sets of lines as fast as you can, over and over. Last man back does press-ups, sit-ups, jumping squats etc. Luckily it was not often me. I was still clearly one of the fittest in the first team. But it still hurt and by the time we sat down for our lunch, it felt like I had been running all day.

  Lunch was good though. The chef clearly had no hang-ups after our defeat and had piled on the grilled chicken, pesto pasta and avocado. My favourite! After we had eaten, the mood altered slightly. Walter spoke occasionally, but his usual beaming smile was gone. He was angry, and disappointed. That was clear. I don’t think he expected us to win the FA Cup, but a decent run would have brought in some money which the club needed to strengthen the squad, and it would have given us confidence to kick on in our quest for promotion.

  I was surprised that nothing was really mentioned about the FA Cup defeat. A few passing comments: with, perhaps try this, or possibly try that next time. The word of the day was patience. All the coaches felt that we had been rushing to finish them off and score lots of goals quickly. That impatience we showed meant we had rushed our chances. That, and the fact that their goalkeeper had been incredible. Walter did ask if I was ok later on that week, and like Billy, he just told me to, ‘Shrug it off. It happens to everyone sooner or later. Yours was sooner, than you wanted, but next time you will be better prepared.’

  He was upset, that was clear. He had taken a lot of stick in the papers and worse still on social media. But there was no doubt in my mind, as well as the other players, that Walter Rolland could restore the club to its rightful place, at the very top of European football. I was desperate to play my part and get us there.

  The brief chat with Walter did make me feel a bit better. If missing that penalty had taught me one thing, it was to stay calm and relax, don’t rush or force it. I let the situation get the better of me, and whilst I felt a failure, my team-mates clearly did not, backing me totally both privately and publicly. Mac even went on TV the next day to do an interview, and what he said totally blew me away:

  ‘Young Jack Harvey has been the highlight of the season for us’, he said. ‘There was no one else I’d want on that final penalty. Yes, he may have missed his kick, but it should never have reached a shoot-out. We were the better team with better, fitter players. We were more experienced than they were, but we all failed to show that, and we failed to finish the game when we had chance after chance. If you want to put blame on someone then you list the entire team, not just Jack. Young players should be looked after and encouraged, win, lose or draw, and as a team, as a club, we will all stand with Jack and we will help him recover quickly, because a fit and strong Jack Harvey will win us promotion this season.’

  It was a huge statement and one that really took me back. Mac had always had my back in training and on the pitch during games, he’d made it his job to keep me out of trouble, but to say that publicly made me feel ten feet tall. After hearing what Mac had said I felt great again, and the next day, despite the double session, I was bouncing. I felt fresh and eager to get back into the days’ training sessions, no matter how hard they were.

  Focus had quickly turned from the Middlethian defeat to the league game against East Athletics. We needed to win to keep the gap to the play-off zone manageable as we approached the halfway point of the season. The training sessions became even more and more intense as the week progressed. Several times Walter had to stop sessions and remind some of the players that we were on the same team, after some rather tasty tackles had been put in!

  One thing I had learnt in my short time at Accies was that Walter is a loyal and trusting manager. Other than the return of Mac from injury, he kept faith with the team who had failed to see off Middlethian. This meant I had an immediate chance to set the record straight. We all did. Walter said exactly that in his pre-game press conference.

  ‘Most of these lads underperformed last weekend,’ he told the room full of media personnel. ‘They know what they need to do to sort it. I trust them that they will do exactly that. As a team we could and should have done much better, but I know that last week was just a blip and I fully expect us to give a good account of ourselves against East.’

  And that’s exactly what happened. In a perfect response to the last few matches, we scored two goals in each half, Thiago with his first (and second) of the season, another for me and a beauty from the ever-improving Zac, gave us a 4-0 away win. In the next match, Liverford Wanderers put up a bit of a fight, but they were still downed 3-1. Wolfborough, a game which I expected to be very tricky (away in the Wolves Lair as their ground was known), went without incident in a solid 2-0 win. I had scored in each of the last four matches and was delighted with the fact that I was now the club’s top-scorer with ten at the halfway point of the season. As a team, we had done well to recover from our shocking start, and stood with ten wins, three draws and six defeats. Sitting on 33 points in tenth place was ok, but nowhere near good enough to get a play-off spot, which usually took 70-75 points.

  We needed to up our game considerably.

  The next opportunity was when York Town came to the Accies stadium for the first game of the second half of the season. I was able to get revenge for that opening day defeat. Slotting both goals in a comfortable 2-0 win. Goals against Sandford, Heston and Albion followed. With two wins and a draw from those three games, we were now flying up the table and closing in on the sixth place, which would give us a play-off semi-final spot, and maybe even an outside chance of automatic promotion.

  The problem was the other teams kept winning too and our first 0-0 draw of the season against Queens Park didn’t help. Walter decided to try something a bit more drastic in order to get the goals we really needed

  At the Monday meeting it was just us, Walter and the players. No coaches, physios or doctors.

  ‘Is this going to be serious, mate?’ I asked Lucas

  ‘Dunno,’ he replied. ‘Something is up that’s for sure.’

  ‘OK Gentleman, listen up,’ Walter cried. ‘We need to push on hard for promotion. We aren’t scoring enough goals and losing silly points to teams we should be smashing off the pitch is going to hurt us at the end of the season. We need to utilise our strengths. We are going to dominate the ball, in their half by playing our three best forwards all at once. We will be relying on the midfielders to increase their work rate, but I think we have the fittest boys in the country. This is the team selection for Saturday,’ he said unveiling the team he had scribbled on the touch screen.

  Three up front? It was bold. I was excited. I’d played (briefly) with both Dex and Thiago, but never at the same time. This new look side looked like it could score goals from everywhere. And so it proved as we smashed both Wealdmore and Workington 4-0, Oxfield 3-1 and East Cove 5-2 in a pulsating game. My goals tally was shooting up, only behind the main men at both Western Villa and Manford in the race for the golden boot, (which was the award given to the league’s top goal-scorer).

  We were now on a great run, unbeaten since the FA Cup defeat, but back-to-back draws hindered us once again in our charge up the table. Not for lack of trying, it was more that the goalkeepers enjoyed playing against such a big team and played their best game of the season. It was frustrating for us, but also strangely satisfying in a way. Despite our position, the other teams saw us as the best side in the league and treated us as such. But even with these minor setbacks, we were still right in the hunt in what was becoming one of the most competitive play-off races for years. We scrapped away to get the three points in our next game before a big week when we played the top two sides back-to-back.

  Western Villa was first up, and as before it was a terrific game. Lots of good football played by both sides. Villa were desperate to close the gap on Manford (who were beginning to pull away at the top of the table), but Lucas was having a great game. They did eventually beat him late on, but almost from the restart Fin hit a worldie of a pass right to my feet and I curled a beauty into the top corner for 1-1 as we salvaged a draw.

  We had six games to go. I’d worked out to be sure we needed to win five of them, maybe only four if we were really lucky. Beating old Wimbledonians away from home was a good start, but next up was the mighty Manford. Away.

  There could be no doubt, it would be a battle.

  “If you are alone, Jack, you can only do so much. Together we will move mountains.” (Lucas)

  Manford Rovers were closing in on the championship title. They needed one more win to be assured of promotion and first position seemed to be a nailed-on certainty. Judging by what they were saying pre-game, they were fully intent to finish the job against us. We had a full-strength side to choose from once again, but they had their big two forwards who had haunted us in the first game back, one from injury and the other having served a suspension for a red card in a previous game.

  They looked formidable and there was little doubt in my mind that they would regain their place in the Premier League. But despite the setbacks of a few draws in the league, we were unbeaten for 18 matches. It would be a great game. We hadn’t lost a league game since the thrashing Manford gave us at the Accies stadium. But away from home, well this was another huge test. Manford not only had the best home record in the division, but it was also the best home record in the whole of the UK. This would be their 22nd home match in all competitions, and so far, they had won 20 and drawn only one. They were still in the FA Cup having beaten two Premier League sides so far. Beating them would be a formidable task. We were only two points behind sixth place Wolfborough, but a defeat could spell the end of our charge to the end of season play-offs.

  We were all optimistic; Mac was his usual excitable self, Walter was super-positive and running out I felt that it would time for revenge. It was not to be the case. In fact, after 25 minutes of the match I couldn’t see anything other than another heavy defeat. In a near carbon copy of the first match against them, we were two goals and a man down, and struggling to hold on to the mighty Manford strikers. Dexter had seen a very early red card for a rash challenge. One he later admitted was reckless and stupid. But as the half drew to a close, instead of falling apart, we began to play some really good football. Something inside me clicked, it felt good, it felt so much better! I couldn’t understand or explain quite how I felt like this, but I did. I believed in my team; I believed in Walter and his advice. But best of all, I really believed in myself: I could make a difference, I knew I could make the change we needed to get back into this match.

  ‘Lads,’ Walter barked, ‘we are still in this. They have given us their everything, and they know we will not go away. We need to pressure them higher and higher, force them into mistakes. No one has dared go for them the way that we will in this second half. They won’t like it and they won’t know how to deal with it.’

  It was a stirring speech and it got us going. The second half started and we exploded into life. Almost immediately, Monty was down the wing, crossing for me at the back post, but just as I was about to strike the ball the Manford keeper and I crashed into each other, and I was sent tumbling end over end. All I could hear was shouting and the referee’s whistle. I lay face down waiting for the cheers for what I thought would be my red card, but in fact it was the other way. Their keeper had hit me far too early and was given his marching orders. We were ten men each, but they had lost their keeper and their substitute goalie was young, untried and untested.

  His first job was to pick the ball out of the net as Thiago smashed the penalty into the top right corner. Our tails were up, and we went time and again at Manford. To his credit, and despite his obvious nerves, their replacement keeper did quite well. It was his long heavy clearance that set up a chance for their killer striker, who slotted past Lucas, 1-3. Totally against the run of play. But despite this huge setback we knew we were the better side, we knew we would have more chances the way we were playing.

  Having received the ball from Zac after one of his typically bone-crunching tackles, I played a quick one-two with Monty before thumping the ball goal-wards. It caught the keepers’ right hand and looked to be heading out for a corner, but there, flying in at the back post was Thiago, and he was able to slide it home, 2-3 and it really was game on now with ten minutes left.

  We pushed hard, we pressed high. The Manford players were out on their feet with exhaustion, but we kept on going and going. Closing in on injury time, I pleaded with Fin and Zac to get me the ball.

  ‘Just get it to me, anywhere, any way you can. The guy who is marking me can’t keep up with me. He’s dead on his feet, just give me one chance,’ I begged.

  Then, Lucas found Arlo with one of his arrow like throws. Arlo’s curling pass down the line found Monty. He tucked it inside to Fin who pinged it first time to my feet. I controlled it instantly, turned and ran at full speed towards my marker. He swung a tired leg, catching my trailing foot, but even though I was stumbling I kept going. Away and free, just the substitute keeper to beat, I could see Zac steaming up on my left, but so did the keeper, and the second he looked to see what Zac was doing I pushed the ball to my right, rounded him and rolled the ball into an empty net. 3-3! We had done it. Against the odds we had come back, and whilst it was only one point gained, it felt like a win. Doubly so, when we found that the only other side who could realistically pip us to sixth place, Wolfborough, had also only been able to draw their match, maintaining the gap between the two teams, to only two points.

  We were elated, and I felt brilliant. The media said that my goal was the best they had seen at the Manford stadium all season, and there had been a lot of goals there! The Manford players were furious with the result, but on TV their captain said that although they had scored three goals, he felt fortunate to have not lost their unbeaten record.

  ‘That was the hardest game we have had all season, including against the two Premier League clubs,’ he stated. ‘If Accies had started the season like that, today’s game would have been the championship decider for sure.’

 

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