October arrived, the James Milner of months, spiking forth blackberries and bracken in equal measure. Leaves were on the trees, leaves were off the trees, leaves dangled warily from the trees, knowing they wouldn’t stay in the big league for long.
Ascalon Rovers were jubilant. With Round One of the FA Cup successfully completed, the Rovers lads were dreaming. Percy, Ascalon’s very own wonderkid, was still running about after dark in his oversized football shirt, beating imaginary Premiership defenders. Diminutive Tristan had added an extra three cones to his dribbling practice. Graham Ormond had accosted more Marines in the pub than ever before.
Nevertheless, Merv, the team’s guru and new manager, wasn’t free and easy. Sooner or later it would be time for the draw, when his team would go in the hat for the next round. Merv had heard all about the draw, and he didn’t like it very much. All a bit unnecessary, he reckoned. He pulled his fading leather jacket closer and scratched his unshaven chin.
At that minute, Percy came running into the changing rooms.
“A letter, a letter!” He tripped over his shirt, sending the letter flying into Merv’s tea.
“Watch it!” Merv looked disgustedly at his drink. The corner of the envelope had skimmed the tea’s blobby surface. He took up the letter and tore its envelope apart.
“Hmmm.” he read the letter slowly, moving his eyes back and forth over the first few lines, a guard scanning the horizon. He addressed Percy, who had picked himself up.
“Lad, get the team. We’ve been asked to the draw.”
Saturday. The day of the draw. Merv leaned on his rusting old Vauxhall, watching warily as club captain Alfie and vice-captain Lawrence came to join him. They were to attend the draw, as had been agreed at the last team meeting.
“So where are we off to, then?” Lawrence Lake rubbed his hands with fake enthusiasm. He hated long car journeys.
“Wait and see.” Merv pointed to the car door. Alfie wrenched open the passenger door and wedged himself in. Lawrence lowered himself into the back, gangling an ungainly line between roof, seat and random clobber. An old packet of cigarettes crumpled beneath him, whilst a TV aerial bent dubiously behind his ears.
“Watch out, mate!” Merv shouted from the front, looking upwards as people inexplicably do when talking to someone seated behind them. “Gear back there, you know what I’m saying?”
Lawrence hunched nervously. He hoped that the journey to the draw, in whichever city it was being held in, would be bearable. He also hoped that his hair would not smell of Merv’s cigarettes.
“Off we go!” shouted Merv. And with that they pulled out, turned the corner and carried on down a back street. Alfie continued to stare straight in front of him, oblivious to Merv’s gear.
They turned another corner, pulling in to the new estate on the edge of town. Lawrence looked on with surprise as they cantered past show homes.
“Why are we pulling in here? We’re off to the draw, right?”
“That’s right, mate, off to the draw. It’s just up here.” The car halted outside a shiny looking model home. A large sign beckoned adoring families inside, if they so happened to wander past.
“Here?” It all seemed a little irregular to Lawrence Lake. “Really?”
“Yeah, here, mate.”
“In a model home at the edge of Ascalon?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re doing the draw here? Not in a conference centre or a fancy stadium?”
“Sort of. You’ll see.” Merv, looking for something, reached under his seat, and raised up a wrench. He saw Lawrence’s startled face.
“For cover,” Merv shrugged, picking up a builder’s hat from the seat.
“Cover?” Lawrence replied, but Merv had left the car and was slamming the door. “Alfie, what are we up to?”
Alfie, too, was leaving the car, purposeful stare in hand. As his door closed, Lawrence wondered what he had got himself into. What had Merv been doing away from Ascalon? Of course, he might be perfectly innocent, but what if he’d been up to no good with that wrench? Perhaps prison would explain Merv’s disappearance…
No, that couldn’t be it. Merv might be a bit grimy, but he’d always been on the good side. Besides, there wasn’t much to steal from a display home. Lawrence clambered out of the car, still apprehensive, and followed the other two, who were treading slowly towards the house. Alfie’s feet munched the pebbles cautiously. Merv trod to the window, had a peek, and quickly slinked behind the wall.
“There’s an estate agent in there now,” he gesticulated to the others, “We’ll have to creep round the back.”
Lawrence Lake glanced nervously over his shoulder. Turning, he watched as Merv ambled round the back of the house, Alfie striding behind. He followed, reluctantly, not really trying to hide from the estate agent.
Merv slid the patio doors open. They were too new to creak.
“Right, the draw’s in the kitchen,” he said. In the distance the rat-a-tat-tat of estate agent footsteps could be heard.
Lawrence still didn’t understand why the draw might be in the kitchen of this show home on the edge of a small Wiltshire town, but he hadn’t expected the Bolton Wanderers either. The only thing that troubled him was the builder’s hat and the wrench. Nothing good ever came of wearing a builder’s hat.
“If we do get caught,” Merv said, “We’re builders. Remember that. We’re here to do some building.”
“But the building’s all been done here,” replied Lawrence.
“Well, um…” Merv clearly hadn’t thought of that. “Well, we’ll think of something.”
The rat-a-tat-tat was slightly closer now. Evidently the estate agent was nearby.
“Into the kitchen,” Merv whispered, “Here we go.”
There was no-one in the kitchen.
“This is where the action happens. Now where’s the key/”
It was a burglary, Lawrence thought. Of course they were doing a burglary. He’d been stupid, should have known the draw wasn’t in a country show home. Why would the FA come all the way to Ascalon for their beloved draw. Lawrence could see the headlines now. Footballers in robbery shocker. Ascalon aren’t just stealing points now, they’re nicking… what were they nicking? There was nothing actually in the kitchen, apart from counters and a bit of kitchen furniture. A coffee machine perched optimistically on the top, hoping to be plugged in and used.
Nevertheless, they’d get done for something, Lawrence was sure of that. He smoothed back his hair with agitation. The media focus would be on him, undoubtedly, the dashing one. Alfie and Merv looked like felons, that wouldn’t be the story. No, the media would want the guy with the film-star looks to play the leading role, standing grimly in profile, handsomely leering at the camera…
“Don’t just stand there, open the drawer, boy!”
“The drawer?”
“The drawer for the second round!”
Sure enough, the top kitchen drawer was marked, in gold-leaf lettering, ‘Second Round’. Lawrence stared in befuddlement.
Alfie stomped past him and tugged open the drawer with his mighty captain’s arms. Inside the drawer was a hat. An ordinary looking hat, a bobble hat, in fact.
“Alright, you two, get in the hat.”
“You what?”
But before Merv could reply to Lawrence, Alfie took hold of the hat and, looking as if it was the most normal thing in all the world, stepped into it. He disappeared into its folds as someone might climb into a sack.
“What?”
“It’s the drawer for the second round, Lozza. Ascalon’s in the hat.”
Merv picked up the hat.
“We’ve got to go find our opponents, find out who we’re playing, see? When I’m in, follow straight afterwards. That way we won’t get lost in the hat.”
“Lost in the hat. You’ll see. Hang on, we’ve been talking a bit loud, haven’t we?” The estate agent’s footsteps were rushing hurriedly now.
“Here goes.” Merv lifted one leg gingerly into the hat, pulling his other leg behind him, over its rim. He disappeared from view.
Lawrence stared at the hat, which was now lying on the ground. First the Bolton Wanderers and their undead army, now this. He walked over to the hat and picked it up.
“Is there anybody here?” the estate agent called out.
Lawrence looked at the door, then looked at the hat. There was no choice really. Either face the wrath of an estate agent – which he knew, from experience, could really be something – or enter a magical dimension and suffer pains as yet unknown. The unknown it was. He clambered in.
The door opened, but Lawrence had gone. The hat remained on the floor and the drawer remained open. The estate agent, with a slightly puzzled look on his face – he didn’t remember opening the drawer, but it’s easy to forget these things – put the hat back where it belonged, and closed the drawer.
The first thing Lawrence heard was a buzzard.
He wouldn’t have known it was a buzzard, not being an expert on wild birds, but it clearly wasn’t the usual Wiltshire pigeon. He blinked, but smiled.
They stood on a large hill, or possibly a small mountain. Above them the hill steepened, rising through the gorse, pushing through the rocky outcrops at the summit. Where they stood the hill was almost barren with rock and fern, wild and strange, purple flowers peeping between the rocks.
“Where are we?”
“This is the World of the FA Cup, Lake. Take a look around,” Merv brushed his scratchy chin, not looking remotely surprised at having found a fantasy world in a drawer in Wiltshire.
It really was a fantasy world. In the distance stood an immense woodland, full of all those kinds of trees that look identical to the untrained eye, but have their individual ways and means. In another direction was a great castle, and in front of the castle stood some cannons, firing intermittently.
“Ah,” said Merv, noticing where Lawrence was looking. “That forest there, that’s Nottingham Forest. The fortress, well, that’s Newcastle, and those guns are Arsenal.”
He turned to face Lawrence.
“The world of the FA Cup, Lake. Now we’re in it too. The big leagues, boy.”
He took a dead cigarette out of his mouth and held it aloft, its end dangling, soggy, from roughened fingers.
“Maybe we’ll have to go down there soon, if you lads manage to stay in the drawer, that is.”
Lawrence surveyed the scene again. It did look grand, this world.
“So, Merv, what do we do?”
“We don’t go down into the world yet. We’re not far enough in the competition. Alfie here,” he pointed at the captain, who stood, arms strongly folded, above the scene, grandly staring into the distance.
Merv continued. “No, mate, we pick an opponent here, but play them in our mortal world. Won’t be one of the massive clubs yet, nah,” he pointed down to the magnificent castle, “but we’ll get a bit of a toughie, yeah.”
The cigarette crumbled into two, one half falling from Merv;s fingers on to the windswept crags of the hill.
“Hoping we get Notts County – bit unlikely though, as I’ve heard they’re cup-tied. Maybe Milton Keynes Dons, they’re good for a laugh. Load of Spanish fellas in big hats, not much use. Even better would be Exeter City.”
“Why, what are Exeter City like? Lots of the letter X? Eleven exits?”
“Nah, they’re just really bad at football.”
At that moment there was a fluttering noise, like the sound of a dozen paper aeroplanes.
“The draw, fellas! Here it comes. Grab a team, Alfie!”
There was a ripping sound, and paper began to fall from the clouds. Great scrunched-up pieces of paper, round balls of thrown-away cardboard, began to scribble down from the sky.
“Catch one! Catch one!” Lawrence had never seen Merv this animated. Alfie look up disdainfully, ignoring the paper landing around him. Merv cooked on, twitching nervously.
“Alfie!”
Alfie looked ahead, solemn. Finally, with one sudden, determined push of his forearm, he reached out and caught a ball of cardboard.
“What does it say, Captain?” Lawrence ambled towards his skipper. Merv sauntered over too, quivering slightly with anticipation.
Alfie unravelled the ball, squinting a little as he stared at the copper-plate handwriting.
“Sheffield Wednesday.”
Merv still quivered.
“What day do we play them? What day?” he demanded.
“We’re playing at home… next Wednesday.”
Merv’s face scrunched up like paper.
Having returned to the real world via a wobbly drawer, an empty kitchen and a dodgy Vauxhall Nova, the three adventurers were back in the clubhouse, surrounded by the team. Merv was perched on a stool beside the table football, head in his hands.
“Sheffield Wednesday?” The team were bombarding him with questions.
“Merv, what’s wrong with Sheffield Wednesday?”
“They’re not even as big as Bolton Wanderers, right?”
Merv’s face was still scooped in his palms. Bent forward, his leather jacket spilled over the back of his hands.
“Merv! Merv!”
Finally, Big Graham Ormond could take no more.
“TALK, LADDIE!” He bent forward and screamed in Merv’s ear, with all the terrifying rage of a man whose country has never won the World Cup.
Graham smashed a glass against the table, just because he could.
“Alright, alright!” Merv slowly lifted his head from his hands, parting his fingers and peeking between them. “I’ll tell you why you don’t want to face Sheffield Wednesday in the Second Round. Pay attention, you lot.”
The team inched closer, eager for a tale. Percy, making sure he got to the front, sat up tall, bright-eyed.
“Alright,” said Merv, “Here goes. Actually, I don’t know the story, I only really know what I know. Don’t ask me how – I don’t know everything, fellas – but this Sheffield Wednesday, you don’t want to face them on a Wednesday.”
The team waited for him to continue, but there he sat, hair-lipped.
“Why not? What’s so good about them on a Wednesday?” someone asked.
“Well, I’ve heard it said – and I reckon it ain’t a lie – that there’s a spell on that club. On a Wednesday, my mate down the pub told me, on a Wednesday they’ve got the strength of five men.”
“The strength of five men?”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard. Each man, I reckon, he’s got the strength of five players. If they signed Cristiano Ronaldo, he’d be like five Ronaldos on a Wednesday. Big Graham here, well he’d be like five raging Scotsmen on a Wednesday if they signed him, even before his pints.”
The lads were crestfallen.
“We can’t stop them if they’ve got the strength of five! That’s like-” Kevin Kay, the team’s joker, turned to the goalkeeper, “Boris, what’s that like?”
“Fifty-five men.”
“Cheers, mate. Fifty five men! Can’t take on fifty-five men! Not even me. Actually, maybe I could, but the rest of you…”
“There must be a way of beating them!” Percy piped up. “There’s always a way! They’re not one of the massive clubs, are they? There must be a reason why they don’t win much.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Maybe they don’t always play on a Wednesday,” Lawrence suggested.
“That’s it! Lake, you’ve got it.” Boris the Goalie stood up slowly, with a smile growing as wide as his goalmouth.
“What?”
“It’s simple. We don’t play them on a Wednesday.”
“Idiot!” Kevin Kay yelled gleefully, “We’re playing them on a Wednesday, that’s what the draw says. Idiot!”
“Yeah, but if we can get the match to a replay, we’ll be up against normal-strength players.”
“We’d have to not get beat first. And they’ve all got the strength of five men. Idiot!”
“Hear me out. If we get the match postponed, we won’t have to draw the match.”
“What are you saying, Boris?” All turned to Alfie, the one who had deigned the meeting with his voice.
“I’m saying, skipper, that if we can get a postponement, then we won’t be fighting against the odds. I mean, we’ll have a tricky away leg, but maybe we can deal with that. Easier than taking on a supernatural army again.”
Slowly, one by one, then in unison, the Rovers team nodded their approval.
“He’s got a point.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Merv looked at him thoughtfully, chin resting on palm.
“So, Boris, how do you reckon we do it?”
“That’s the thing,” Boris replied, “It’s not that easy to get a genuine postponement. The FA don’t take kindly to you not playing footy. They could kick us out the competition altogether if we don’t get it right.”
“They postpone matches if the weather’s too bad,” said Tristan Lyons, Ascalon’s tricky winger.
“We can’t make the weather bad,” said Kevin, mouth full of scorn.
“We can pretend it’s bad!” the winger replied hopefully, “Get the pitch all wet, convince the FA it’s waterlogged, get the match put off.”
Alfie stared at Tristan for a second.
“Do as he says. Get the hose.”
Half an hour passed. Not much progress had been made.
The first thing to go wrong was that Kevin Kay got to the hose first.
“Which of you losers wants a hosing! Wahey!”
And with that he turned the hose on Percy, who ran around wailing and waving his arms frantically.
“Right, who’s next? Gaffer, you haven’t had a wash in a while!”
He turned the hose on Merv, who began to splutter helplessly.
“Ah mate, wahey!”
By this point the changing room was soaked. Old photographs fell from the walls, almost floating in a tiny sea. Percy looked as if he was about to cry.
Kevin Kay turned towards Big Graham Ormond.
“Laddie, if you turn that on me, I’ll make you wish you’d never touched a drop of water in ye life.”
Kevin Kay dropped his smile and his hose.
“Kay, clean up this mess.” Alfie reprimanded his relation. “The rest of you, outside.”
As Kevin stayed in the changing room to redeem his sins, the rest of the team left for the pitch. Things didn’t go to plan out there, either.
“Tristan, turn the hose on!”
“It is on.”
The hose dripped sadly over the touchline.
“Kevin must have used all the water,” Tristan said. At that moment, Galahad, the team’s star player, galloped over to them. He had been practising alone on the pitch.
“What are we trying to do, then?” He flashed a glamorous starshine grin.
“Trying to waterlog the pitch,” Tristan replied. “We need to get a postponement against the Wednesday.”
“Isn’t the pitch always waterlogged? It’s never stopped you playing before.”
Merv’s face tightened. “He’s got a point. No-one’s going to believe that the Ascalon lads won’t play on a watery pitch.”
The team sighed in frustration. Lawrence had an idea.
“It could snow. Or we could make it look like it snowed.”
“How?”
“I dunno,” Lawrence ran a hand through his brushed locks, “Maybe we could paint the pitch white? Send a blurry photo, all zoomed out, to the Sheffield lot, tell them the match is off.”
Silence. They turned to Alfie.
He spoke. “Right, plan. Galahad, you weren’t at the meeting. Paint the ptich.”
Somebody handed Galahad the paint, and everyone else went to look for the camera.
“Not sure that’s good enough, myself,” Lawrence said, squinting at the photo, “Not sure you’d think it was snow.”
The pitch was certainly white in the picture, but Lawrence Lake was right: it didn’t really look like snow.
“What harm can it do? I’ll send it them anyway, see if we can get a rematch. All agreed, fellas?” Merv asked.
They all agreed. He clicked ‘Send’ on the email, the team huddled round his computer screen.
They didn’t have to wait long for a reply. A minute later, the Sheffield manager’s email came dancing to Merv’s inbox.
“A bit of snow like that and you want to call it off? Typical soft Southerners! Nah, only joking, but we can play through a little bit of snow like that. See you Wednesday!”
Ascalon’s men squinted at the emails, each vying to get a better look at it. Finally, Lawrence spoke.
“Of course, they’re Northern. Didn’t have much chance convincing the weather in Wiltshire was too bad for them to play.”
The team stood looking at one another, hands on hips. “Any more bright ideas? Boris?”
“Well,” he began, “Not sure I’ve got any more bright ideas, but I was just thinking back to the last game we had to call off.”
“Go on.”
“It was up at Frome, remember, and we all went for a meal the night before. The fish pie was off, and took out half our team. Only match we didn’t win that season.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’m saying – if a fish pie can take out the best team in our league, then maybe it could take out any team, even if they’re five times stronger than us. Even five men can’t withstand a dodgy lasagne.”
“So we feed them fish pie?”
“Fish pie. Or meat pie. Steak and kidney’s an easy one to foul up. And I know Alfie makes a properly dodgy curry. Just invite them over to lunch before the match and let Nature take its course.”
The reply to the second email came back even quicker than the first.
“We really appreciate the offer, boys, but we can’t sit down to a lasagne with you before the big game on Wednesday. It’s a long bus journey down to Ascalon and we don’t think we’ll make it long before kick-off.
Even if we could get there for lunch, we wouldn’t be able to stomach a great big meal. Not got the strength for it.”
The irony was not lost on the Ascalon boys.
“That does it, lads,” Merv sighed, “You’re just going to work out how to beat a team of 55 players. Set pieces might be hard, marking about fifty men.”
The boys nodded grimly.
“What formation do you think they’ll line up in, with fifty-five players?” Tristan asked.
“I think I’d go for a 20-20-10,” speculated Lawrence, “Keep it simple.”
“Nah,” I like a lone striker,” said Kevin, “Pack the midfield. 10-39-1 for me.”
Lawrence thought about trying to man-mark 30 players in central midfield, but instead decided not to think.
“We can’t just give up!” Percy squealed. “Boris’s plan didn’t work, but they still might not get here. They said the bus would only just make it in time. They could be late and forfeit!”
“We can’t hope they’ll be late,” Graham said.
“We could make them late,” Boris said, quietly. The team turned to their goalkeeper.
“How?”
“I know how!” shouted Percy happily, “We used to do it at school. There was a one-way system in the corridors, and there signs everywhere telling you which way to go,” He giggled at the memory, “Once we turned the signs around and…” he spluttered, “and we got everyone lost!”
Giggling some more, he just about managed to continue.
“So we turn all the signs to the ground the wrong way. Maybe… maybe they’ll get lost and not turn up!”
They all turned to Boris.
“It might work,” he said. “It almost certainly won’t, but it’ll give us something to do before the game. Not sure extra training would be much use.”
The day of the match came. It was a breezy October Wednesday, Coventry blue sky across the South of England. No matches would be called off today, even as those pale skies turn to murky evening cloud.
Spectators slowly wandered into the ground. Of course, they wondered why all Ascalon’s signs were pointing in the direction – at least, those who bothered to look at the signs wondered. Most of the home supporters didn’t notice, being too concerned with Autumn and leaves and football and the chances of their team.
Minutes passed. Ten left until kick-off.
“Still not here,” Lawrence said, peeking at the car park. “Maybe it worked.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, fellas,” Merv cautioned.
Alfie agreed. “Stick to the game plan. Zonal marking. Hit them on the break. Strong back four. Close the space, because there won’t be much of it.”
The team nodded.
Five minutes to go. Still no sign of the Sheffield Wednesday.
“We’ve done it! They’re not going to turn up!”
Everyone was starting to believe now, not just Percy. Even Big Graham Ormond thought about smiling.
“The third round! The third round!” Percy continued to squeak.
“Percy, don’t get your hopes up,” Merv said, “They might be pulling up now.”
He drew down the blinds. Sure enough, a big bus pulled in, with ‘South Yorkshire Coaches For Football Squads’ was parking up.
Everyone groaned.
“Well, we best go and meet them,” sighed Lawrence, following his skipper out of the door.
“Afternoon, lads. Nice day for it!” The Sheffield manager, uniformed in tracksuit, was all smiles to greet them. “You must be the captain,” he beamed at Alfie, shaking his hand, “Good to see you.”
Before Alfie could reply, the manager continued.
“Had all the trouble getting here, I can tell you. Your road signs all point the wrong way down south! Luckily we Yorkshiremen like to talk to people. Asked a few locals, they pointed us the right way in the end.”
He looked at his watch. “On time too!”
Lawrence smiled a sad half-smile. They were Northerners. Of course they would ask people for directions.
The Sheffield manager turned to Lawrence.
“To tell you the truth, we raised our hopes when you emailed us about the snow. We don’t like to play on Wednesdays, you see. Wouldn’t have minded to call it off until the weekend. But you Southerners, you don’t know snow like we do up North!”
Lawrence frowned in surprise.
“Hang on, why don’t you like playing on Wednesdays?”
It was the Sheffield managers turn to look surprised.
“Haven’t you heard? I thought everyone had heard. We were placed under a curse a long time ago, back when our club was founded. On Wednesdays we only have the strength of five men. That’s why we’re called Wednesday.”
“The strength of five men?”
“That’s right, five men. We can only field five men on a Wednesday. That’s why we’re no longer in the Premiership. Ever since they started weekday fixtures we’ve been on a downward slope.”
Behind him five striped footballers trotted miserably off the bus.
“Come on lads, let’s get this over and done with.” the manager turned to his players an escorted them to the dressing room. Their shoelaces trailed behind them as they walked, slowly, to the end of their FA Cup run.
Lawrence and Alfie looked at each. Lawrence knew, naturally, that his old friend’s face would betray no emotion, but he understood.
“Come on Lake. Let’s go and tell the others.”
FINAL SCORE:
ASCALON ROVERS 5
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 0
Jezknee 