Chapter Twelve
A couple of weeks into the season, it seems Mersey F.C.
has found its groove. We’re unbeaten so far, and everything is gelling.
The new lads are developing well, the older guys have remained injury-free, even the weather in Liverpool seems to be cooperating more than usual.
It’s done unbelievable things for team morale and has had the added bonus of keeping the darkness out of my own thoughts as well.
The stretches of time that pass without me thinking of Steven are getting longer and longer, wrapped up as I am in the team and the job.
If someone had predicted this when I was catatonic in the wake of his departure, there’s no way I would have believed it.
But my plan to distract myself is going gangbusters, allowing time to do its thing vis-à-vis my wounds and the healing thereof.
On a sunny morning in late August, the team is milling around waiting for training to start when someone suggests they play a game of Top Bins—each player attempts to get the ball into the very topmost corner of the goal.
It’s a difficult shot to make, even if you’re a world-class striker, but it’s also a shot that’s nearly impossible for a keeper to save.
The lads line up a bunch of balls on the edge of the penalty area and start to fire them at the goal.
Bashie shouts out that the person who misses by the biggest margin has to buy dinner, and Lachlan responds that he hopes Bashie’s credit card has a high enough limit.
There’s a roar of laughter. Phil and I scramble to capture all of it—this is the stuff that makes for great content, when people can see the boys in their natural habitat, the combination of their world-class banter and skills leading to some true magic.
Lachlan is one of the first to go. He aims a perfectly placed kick at the ball and it lashes the back of the net, about two feet to the left of the corner. Not bad at all.
Nando Herrera pings off the crossbar. Beto Gomez floats a ball just over the top.
Each time someone misses, they run to grab another ball and try again.
Each time someone gets close, there’s a furious round of debate about where their shot falls in the rankings.
Phil’s footage is often reviewed and the two of us act as unofficial arbiters.
As predicted, Bashie shanks his first attempt widely left of goal, and hangs his head in shame as the lads all slap him on the back.
“Were you even trying, Bashie?” shouts Kieran.
“Aye, let’s see you have a go then,” he retorts.
Kieran smirks and puts his ball at the top of the penalty arc.
He inhales and exhales in a short burst of air, then hammers the ball directly into the corner.
Top Bins, no doubt about it. I guess you’d expect nothing less from the man England have pinned all their World Cup hopes on.
He jumps about three feet into the air, pumping his fist as all the lads race to cheer him.
Bashie, properly humbled, gives him a bro hug. “Absolute blinder, laddie. Well done.”
Kieran salutes. “You just let us know where to meet you for scran. Me, I’m partial to steak, but it’s buyer’s choice.”
Bashie looks defeated, but then catches sight of Phil and me standing off to the side. “Wait! We haven’t seen Phil and the Yank have a go. I might be off the hook.”
The whole team rounds on us and I just start laughing, because there’s no way they actually expect us to do this, right?
I glance at Phil, but he’s grinning and removing the camera strap from over his head.
He hands it to me, and when the team see what’s about to happen, they start chanting his name.
I keep the camera trained on him as he walks up to the penalty arc, rolls a ball over and then, calm as you like, fires a rocket straight at the goal.
It bounces off the crossbar and onto the top netting behind—technically a miss, but he’s closer than some of the actual players. The lads go wild.
“Fucking hell, Phil, where did that come from?”
“Tell the gaffer to put him in the lineup for Saturday!”
“It’s the second coming of Bobby Charlton over here, wasting his life away behind a camera.”
“Bad luck, Bash,” Kieran says.
“Then the Yank is my only hope,” Bashie responds. He beckons me over and Phil takes the camera back.
The team starts chanting, “Macca! Macca! Macca!” A shiver of nerves, or excitement, or both trills up my spine.
There’s absolutely no way this ends well.
All three of my brothers are tremendous athletes—Dustin won the state championship in cross-country three years in a row, Nick played D1 college football, and Kyle even spent a few years in the minors with the Red Sox’s triple-A team.
And yet, when it came time for the youngest McIntyre sibling, someone put a little too much chlorine in the gene pool, because I’m pretty sure the only contest I could win is a pie-eating one.
But I’m still going to try. One, because they’re chanting my name, and two, because how cool would it be if I nailed it?
I square myself in front of the net and think about everything my brothers ever said in their ill-fated attempts to teach me sports: Keep your eye on the ball.
Visualize the goal. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad will probably still love you even if you miss this.
I look down at the ball, take a little run up and…
…barely connect. The ball rolls about thirty feet in a direction roughly parallel to the goal, far and away the worst attempt of the day, or perhaps of all time.
We all stand there in silence for a second, looking at the ball lying limply in the grass, and then there’s an enormous uproar as the team swarms around me.
“Absolutely shameful,” says Bashie. “Thank God!”
“The goal’s that way, Macca,” says Kieran, throwing an arm around my shoulder and rotating me to face it. “It’s that big thing with all the netting, see?”
Matt Fletcher shakes his head. “My five-year-old would have gotten closer, Mac.”
“That was very bad,” says our Italian defender, Marco Riva, which is actually way more devastating when delivered in his accent.
I cannot stop laughing as the banter escalates.
My skills are downgraded from those of a five-year-old to a three-year-old to a fetus to the barest idea of a thing with legs.
One of the guys says he reckons his nan could have done better, and she’s been dead five years.
Lachlan waves three fingers in my face and says, “I’m genuinely concerned about your eyesight.
How many fingers am I holding up?” They gently bump me back and forth around the circle, absolutely tearing me to shreds with their jokes until I collapse onto the grass and stare up at them, ten professional athletes hovering above me, all crossing their arms and clicking their tongues.
“I’m going to have to leave the sport, aren’t I?” I say.
Kieran shakes his head. “Mate, you’re going to have to leave the country.”
I silently shake with laughter there on the grass until Lachlan extends a hand and pulls me up. “I think it’s safe to say that dinner’s on Abby.”
I dust the grass from my pants. “Hope everyone likes McDonald’s.”
“As long as you’re paying, Bottom Bins,” says Kieran.
I give a little bow and they applaud me as I make my way back to Phil the Wonder-Striker. “That was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen,” he says.
I couldn’t agree more. I loved my time with the Red Sox, and by the end, there were definitely guys on the team that I was friendly with, but never like this.
And while I’m sure most of them liked each other just fine as teammates, there wasn’t anything like the sense of cohesion I sense watching the Mersey lads.
It helps that the level of banter is just different over here.
It’s sharper, more cutting. You can dish it out, but you have to be willing to take it.
And more importantly, the whole Mersey family is tight-knit.
There’s no other way to put it. There’s no hierarchy; everyone is treated the same, from the old ladies who serve the tea to the World Cup winners in the squad.
Everyone is fair game for a joke, and everyone can get in the spirit of things.
The only notable exception is perhaps Vogler himself, but I guess there’s something to be said for the manager keeping up his air of aloof authority.
We film training drills for the next hour, but I could stay out there for days, bathed in the warmth of the sun and of these men. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined this job would make me so happy.