The cries of a seagull are heard across the old town. The grey houses with understated beauty are standing strong and proud, and within the town, on the fields, is a football pitch.
Twenty-two figures ready for the goal kick, and a smattering of figurines next to white lines, shouting, urging.
The seagull lands on one of the small dugouts, where inside there is only room for a manager, an assistant and a couple of players who hadn't been selected.
A cry rings out on the field.
“Give it tae Susan.”
A few seconds later, the coach, black tracksuit, trainers, mop of black hair, weather-beaten face, steps back out of the battered old dugout.
“Give it tae fuckin’ Susan.”
The ball does reach Susan. Many times per match. No player sees the ball than Susan, no player runs with the ball more than Susan, or scores more. Not on this team, or on the opposition team, or in this league.
Her blonde ponytail bounces up as she traps the ball. She looks up to her teammates, but she knows a pass will be wasted. Get the goals first. She already has two goals today. And off she goes. Pace, skill, control.
On the pitch, Susan has control.
The pitch is muddy, the ball bobbles, Susan weaves her path and when she decides it is time, breaks free.
On the pitch Susan has freedom.
Nobody is going to hold her back. She can’t be brought down.
The goalkeeper runs out of her area, it is all she could do to try and intercept Susan’s path.
Susan dips her right shoulder and glides past the goalkeeper, ending up slightly wider than she would like. The other team’s fittest player has run toward the centre of goal, to provide a final obstacle.
Susan sees this last defender, of course she does, and chips the ball over her head. She’d celebrated her first goal with gusto, the second with a nod, the third would be time to hold the pose. Another hat-trick.
The ball bounces close to goal, but slightly to the left and rolls past the post, wide of the goal, before dribbling on to the path behind the pitch. Susan puts both hands to her forehead, and screams:
“Fuuuuuuck!”
“Susan!” is the shout from the touchline.
“Fuckin’ pass it. PASS it. Fer fucks sake Susan.”
Susan jogs back for the goal kick into position and yells her retort to the coach:
“Get yerself all the way to fuck.”
His face reddening, his reaction immediate.
“OFF! Get her off,” he says to his assistant coach. The small round man with thinning silver hair shakes his head wearily, and says to the player next to him:
“Get yerself warmed.”
The substitute can’t hide her surprise at being asked to merely warm up, as it is clear she is needed on the pitch immediately. Susan had held a pose for a few seconds, a ‘double-teapot’ of hands-on-hips, glared, and stormed off the pitch towards the dugout.
Susan takes her shirt off and throws it towards the coach, the biting wind off the west coast completely disregarded as she walks past the dugouts in a greying sports bra. The coach doesn’t even look at her as she carries on past him and the game restarts.
It was a long walk back to what might, at a stretch, be called a dressing room, but Susan didn’t always bother to change in there. She preferred to change alone. Habits. The dressing room was locked anyway. Her plastic bag would have to stay in there, with her battered trainers inside.
She walks across the field, away from the match, away towards the deserted beach, in her football boots.
“She doesn’t think.”
“She’s selfish.”
“She’s so bloody miserable.”
“She’s got a chip on her shoulder.”
“Great player, but she can’t be bothered.”
“The fellas call her Lazy Susan.”
*
Irene watched this unfold from the other side of the pitch. She always stopped to watch when she walked her dog Milano, no matter which teams were playing, usually boys. But this game had gripped her, because of Susan. There was something about Susan.
Before she could do anything about it, Susan had disappeared from view.
Irene wasn’t daft. She knew with her ailments she couldn’t have made it across the pitch in time to speak to the girl, whoever she was. But she wished she had.
Irene didn’t sleep properly the following week. Why hadn’t she spoken to someone, anyone, about Susan?
People knew each other and knew each other’s business in the old town. Even Irene, who led a quiet life these days. It was a bit of an effort even to have a bit of small talk in the bakers. She preferred the company of Milano. But Susan wasn’t from here. Who was she?
On the Saturday, the following weekend, Irene had her worst night yet. It wasn’t just Susan, she’d actually forgotten to take her tablets, which was unlike her, but she wanted some peace of mind.
The local football fixture list was at the mercy of the ‘weather gods’. The freezing winter up here had recently meant more than a month without football, frozen off. For Susan, the freeze had bitten deep.
Please let ‘the Blues’ be at home again, and hopefully Susan would be there. She’d bloody sprint across pitch to speak to her if needed. Irene didn’t want to leave it another week. What if they were away again, or the snow and ice returned?
This time Irene and Milano were there before kick. The home team in their blue, the away team in a claret kit. It wasn’t easy to distinguish between the teams in the gloom, but there was no away kit available to the away team. Irene’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be, but she scanned the field twice and that was more than enough to know Susan wasn’t on the pitch.
Close to her side of the pitch is a girl from the visiting team whose teammates were calling ‘Rif’. Irene could never leave without watching a bit of football. And Rif could play. She was no Susan, but she could play.
Irene noticed how Rif shielded the ball. She noticed how Rif collided with a defender and jumped up and shook hands, like she didn’t want or need the distraction of claiming a foul against her. Irene smiled when there was a free kick and Rif was invited to take it quickly, but hadn’t seen her teammate Heather gesture behind her:
“Give me a fuckin chance Heav!”
A few minutes later, Rif backheels the ball and the defenders aren’t awake.
Her teammate is set free by her actions.
*
Rif isn’t from this town either. In the last town most people knew her. But not about what happened to her. She kept that to herself. The attack on her, the thing that had threatened to define her, destroy her. She was left with it, when he’d long gone.
During the lowest time, Rif had suddenly burst out of her flat and on to the street, struggling to breathe. Nobody noticed. She picked herself up, eyes stinging with tears, hyperventilating. But this time she headed to town, her purposeful walk almost becoming a march.
She didn’t make it into the newsagents that day, or the day after. Third time she made it.
“How much for a notice in the shop window?”
The newsagent looked her up and down. She hadn’t been in for ages. Partly because of the look up and down.
“For you, I’ll do it for just ten pounds per week.”
Another newsagent, to whom he was married, came out of the back of the shop:
“What’s your name please?” she said, with a softness towards Rif that overrode the prickly irritation she was clearly feeling towards her husband.
“Rif.”
“Rif, do you have your card ready for the window?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“When you do, bring it in. And it will go in the window for as long as you need it to be there.”
“For ten pounds a week?”
“For no pounds per week.”
“Thank you.”
The next day, the message was in the window.
Are you a woman of any age who wants to play football?
7pm. Thursdays. Gray’s Field. Meet at Library 6.30-6.45pm
All ages, all girls welcome
Rifat x
Reluctantly, Rif had used the x. It wasn’t her thing. But if one woman, one girl, felt reassured that this was a safe space, then the x was worth it.
The tiny things you have to do to make situations safer. The bigger concessions you make, like the forced smile to the inquisitor opposite a woman on a train.
It was still light at 6pm, indeed it was still light past 8 o’clock. Rif had thought about this, because she knew there was a big chance nobody would show. And they didn’t, for the first two weeks. The third week, two teenage girls showed, and brought another ball.
Whether it was the card in the window, or word of mouth, or both, they started to come. All ages and abilities, until there was enough for training and full games.
When Wendy came, from the refuge, and said she’d had the time of her life, Rif smiled and used what had always got her though. Sarcasm: “You’d have had an even better time if you hadn’t missed that easy chance Wendy.”
“I’m fifty-one, you’re lucky I connected at all,” shot back Wendy with a smile.
Rif walked behind the rickety old clubhouse and sobbed. Sobbed that Wendy was there at all. And that she’d made that happen.
By then Rif had been asked to play for the clarets, one of the best teams in the area. By then she felt safe enough to say yes. She really liked this team and had been asked to ‘take training’ when the two coaches were away on a course.
Confidence and dignity, that Rif had forged, and brought others with her. The strength and talent within.
What had been hidden, suppressed, but what that cowardly bastard couldn’t take away.
*
Despite her clever backheel Rif’s teammate never made it to the goal of the home team. She was taken out by a bad tackle, so high she was virtually chopped in half like a magician’s sidekick. A reckless tackle at best, at worst evil! The referee had no option but to show a red card, and the Blues were down to ten players.
From behind the goal a lone figure emerged in a cotton hoodie, where an anorak would have been better in dealing with the drizzle.
“Oiiiiiiiiiiiii ya prick. REFEREE! That’s never a red!”
Irene had been engrossed but now moved as quickly as she could manage towards the figure behind the goal. It was Susan, please let it be Susan.
Susan was tempted to run on and ‘windmill’ the tackler, but technically she was ‘in hiding’. Hadn’t responded to calls on her battered phone. Not ‘available for selection’.
Irene reached her, out of breath but her pride battling against the breathlessness and trying to stay composed:
“Susan?”
“Who’s asking?” Susan’s face was still hidden behind the giant hood, like an Ewok in the drizzle.
Irene continued unabashed: “Why are yer not playin?”
“Why don’t you ask that wee fuck over there?” said Susan, gesturing over the pitch towards the dugout area.
“Why are yer so angry Susan?”
Susan’s face was half hidden, there was no danger of a reply. She just stared past Irene, who tried to get through Susan’s defence: “You’re a bloody brilliant player yer know, best I’ve seen for a long while.”
“Ah yeah, I’m Gregory’s Girl me,” said Susan sarcastically, and she was already walking off. Over the shoulder she shouted, half to Irene and half into the wind that muffled her words: “What the fuck am I even doing here?”
“SUSAN!” shouted Irene, knowing it was futile.
She watched her walk off towards the old town, which led to the beach, and carried on walking around the perimeter, dotted with hardy souls watching their girls, the girls lucky enough to have someone who cared.
It took a few minutes for Irene to walk around the pitch to the dugout, and when she got there she stayed and watched the end of the match, quietly being soaked in her anorak, anonymous.
By the end of ninety minutes she knew exactly who could play, who couldn’t, who needed what. That’s what experience does. It came naturally, always did. Even when she was Susan’s age and had to fight for the right play football at all.
With the weather worsening, the wind swirling and the rain coming into the neck and soaking bones, the referee’s whistle brought a merciful end to a scrappy, uninspiring game.
1-1 was the score, both teams lacked something different, some imagination to add to determination. Rif’s backheel was the tiny flash of flair in amongst the hard work. This was escapism that wasn’t for the fainthearted or sun seekers.
The coach had kept his anorak hood down, hair sodden with droplets of rain now slipping off down to the mud below. He forced a clap as the girls trundled off, wading through treacle. Soaked, shivering figures, still shaking hands and patting the backs of the girls on the other team: “Nae bad that girls, nae bad.”
He bent down to collect some equipment as his right-hand man urged the girls to get back to the sorry-looking changing rooms, door still locked and graffiti on the battered white doors.
“Get yerself dry girls, come on now. Well played.”
The manager had another little word with the other team’s gaffer and said:
“See you next week.” Maybe that was fixture congestion, maybe the league needed more teams.
As the manager turned out of the dugout, Irene was there.
“You in charge then?”
“Aye” said the manager with a quizzical look, but deadpan.
Irene stuck her hand out. “Irene Matthews.”
The manager looked at Irene’s wet hand with barely concealed reluctance, keen to get away. But he shook it half-heartedly.
“Davie Ross.”
“Why did Susan not play, Davie?”
Davie had a bag of footballs on his shoulders.
“Come again?”
“Why did the girl Susan not play?
“Lazy Susan? You her granny?”
“I’ve only just met her.”
“What’s it to you then?”
“What’s with the Lazy?”
Davie paused, raindrops starting to bounce off his face, rain so heavy it was like the fake rain of a movie. He sighed, feeling this conversation capped up off the kind of day when you toil in the mud for no thanks.
“See that girl. What a player. What a player she could be.”
“Why did she not play today, Davie?” said Irene curtly.
Davie sighed again and continued.
“See these girls. They’re a team. Team players. You know what tracking back means Irene?” said Davie as Irene stared impassively, letting the assumption bounce off her face, like the raindrops being blown into Davie’s.
“She’s nae fucking interested. She’s nae interested at all.”
“Why?”
“Ask her,” said Davie, his first real sign of proper spikiness, coming from defensiveness. “We’ve got twenty girls here, more. I need to think about all of them.”
“Have you spoken to her parents?”
Davie put down his equipment.
“She comes alone, she’s nae a child Irene. She’s a young woman.”
Irene felt the slightly heavy-chested flash of anger that can make you lose your breath.
“She’s not from here, nor are you?”
“Nae far, it’s a short drive for me, I’d prefer the job at United. Eric my number two does the admin here.”
“The girl doesn’t seem happy Davie.”
“You got that right Irene. But there’s a place in the team for her, she’s the best I’ve coached.”
“You coach her?
“Of course I do, I’m the manager here,” said Davie with a sardonic laugh.
“Do you look after her?”
“I’m the manager here!”
“I need her phone number, please.”
Davie stared: “What for, who are you?”
“Never mind that, where can I get her number?”
“Are you a social worker or a scout for City?”
“Don’t patronise me you wee prick. I’ve forgotten more about football than you’ll ever know.”
Something crept over Davie’s face, it was a different aura. He took a deep breath, and he laughed. As he laughed, his blue eyes twinkled and he looked a different person. He’d never been called a prick by a passing ‘granny’ next to the dugout.
“Irene,” he said quietly. “See those girls. We give them something here. Not just coaching. We care about them. It’s nae just football.”
Irene wasn’t laughing. Or smiling. “Good,” she said. “I’ll come with you for Susan’s number.”
“I can’t just give out numbers Irene.”
“I’ll come with you. And that will keep me out of the rain, because I’m far too fragile to be in the rain, aren’t I?”
Davie paused and sighed again:
“Eric will give it yer.”
Inside, Eric had offered a cup of tea from the battered kettle in the tiny unit. And a lift home.
“Davie’s a good man,” said Eric as he passed the slip of paper, which Irene quickly put in her pocket to keep it dry.
I’ll be the judge of that thought Irene, as she nodded to Eric, and started the short walk home.
*
“Do you ever drink tea?” said Irene across the plastic cloth of the cafe table to Susan, slumped in the plastic seat in the same hoodie she’d been wearing behind the goal on that sodden Sunday. “For my generation, tea solves everything.”
Getting Susan to Bella’s Cafe had been harder than marking her on the pitch. Susan had reluctantly accepted a bottle of coke, no glass.
“Who gave you my number?”
Irene ignored the question.
“Who looks after you Susan? Where do you live?”
“Are you the polis?”
There was silence. Broken by Irene.
“When you chipped that keeper for your hat-trick, how close was it to going in?”
“Against Athletic? It should have gone in, unlucky bounce that’s all.”
Irene half-smiled.
“Good goals though.”
Susan shrugged.
“Did you enjoy me telling the coach to fuck off?”
“Honestly,” said Rose taking a sip of tea. “A bit. Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.”
For the first time Susan smiled.
“You play do you?” she asked with a trace of dismissiveness, but no spite.
“I did.”
Susan had no urge to be mean, but she imagined Irene running down the wing for a pensioner’s team.
“Really?” said Susan.
“Really? You sound like one of the bastards who tried to stop me.”
Susan laughed more naturally this time.
“What position?”
“Striker. Always.”
“Were you any good?”
“Aye.”
After slightly awkward pause and Susan leaned forward.
“As good as me?” Irene’s eyes came to life and she leaned in.
“I was the fucking best Susan, the fucking best. But maybe you’re a bit better.”
“Who did you play for? United?”
“See the breakfasts here? Best in town they say. Not on my watch. Come with me, I know a better place.
“Chez Irene.”
*
Women have played football in Scotland for many centuries. Church documents recorded this in Carstairs, Lanarkshire in the year 1628.
A Scotland women’s team played in the world’s first official women’s association football match in Edinburgh in May 1881, where a Scotland XI won against England.
During World War One, many munitions factories had women’s teams. Crowds for some women’s games topped 50,000.
In 1921 women’s football was effectively banned in Scotland, by men. The use of grounds was proposed by its Football Association because of the game’s ‘unsuitability for females’.
It took fifty years for the ban to be lifted.
In the early 1970s some trailblazing figures in Scottish women’s football were pushing for proper recognition. One of them, Rose Reilly, left for France to play for Reims, and then moved to Italy. Where she played for Milan for four years.
Adopted by the Italians, Rose scored for Italy in the final of the 1984 Mundialito. This was the precursor to the women’s World Cup. Italy went on to beat West Germany 3-1 to lift the trophy.
Rose Reilly, who had been banned ‘sine die’ in the 1970s, was inducted in Scottish Sports Hall of fame in 2007, received a special PFA Scotland Merit Award in 2011 and was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2020.
Scotland’s women’s team qualified for its first major tournament, the European Championship, in 2017. In 2019, Scotland’s women played in the World Cup for the first time. They didn’t reach the 2023 tournament in Australasia after defeat in the play-offs.
But Scotland’s women’s team will be back…
*
Davie sat in the tiny corner he jokingly called his office, a little room next to the dressing rooms not much larger than a cupboard.
“Biffa, it’s Davie…. listen I’ve got a player.” Davie was to trying to get a word in with the ‘banter’ coming back down the line.
“Yep…….yep…..well I’m not gonna call you with any old shite am I Biffa? Lazy? Who fuckin’ told you that for fuck’s sake? What a load of bollocks.
Davie paused.
“She’s nae fuckin’ lazy. She’s special.”
*
“Miss it. Misssssss it. Miss it fer fuck’s sake.”
“Arrrrrrrrrggghhh. Noooo.”
Susan is in Irene’s small lounge on a hot summer morning. A World Cup final is on the TV.
Two footballers on the sofa, two women, two friends, one wish.
Their simple wish is that the England lose the game.
“See that pitch? That’ll be me in four year’s time,” said Susan.
“Not in Australia it won’t,” joked Irene.
“Where is it next time?”
“They have nae decided yet. If we get the luck we’ve been missing, you’ll be there.”
“You think I’ll be in the team?” said Susan mischievously, having not yet made her debut for the big local club she’d signed for.
“Well, I don’t think you’ll be there. I know you will.”
“Shall I make us a tea,” said Susan.
On the TV a couple of pundits were talking shite.
“Oh shut the fuck up,” said Irene.
*
“The little girl with red checks to match her smart red cardigan puts her hand in the air. As she pushes her hand higher, her face is a little redder, as she is inadvertently holding her breath.
“Elsie, you look very keen to ask Susan a question.”
“Are you going to play in the World Cup?” says Elsie before finally breathing, the air release gushing out and making her giggle.
“If selected,” smiles Susan. “Look I’m desperate to go. But other players, they might be ahead of me and I haven’t actually played a full match fer Scotland yet, and, look, Elsie. I’ll be there!”
“Can we watch it on that telly Miss?”
“You’ll be in Mrs Lockwood’s class by then Elsie, or maybe you’ll watch it home.”
“Don’t be shy Gary, do you have a question?”
“I wondered what that thing in her hand is Miss?”
“Ah yes, the wee pennant Susan has brought,”
Susan looks at Gary, holds it up, and tries to speak. There is no immediate sound. She can feel a creeping sensation of mild panic and disconcertment, and a tingling up and down her arms. But she will find her voice. Find it. Find it. Find it Susan.
“Believe”, says Irene’s voice in her head “You’re strong Susan, you can do it Susan, nobody will stop you. Hold your nerve girl.”
“See this wee pennant, it’s what a captain of a team gives to the captain of the other team, like a gift to each other. This one is from ladies’ match in 1985 that was like a World Cup, before a proper World Cup existed. Well, there was a World Cup for men. But not for us girls. The lady who gave me this had to go and be the captain of another country. You know why? Because she wasn’t allowed to play here in Scotland. They were nae gonna stop her. When she was your age you know what she did? She cut off her hair so she could pretend to be a boy and play for a team. She was a lovely lady,” says Susan softly and wistfully.
“Her name was Irene. And she believed in me.”
In the school corridor the secretary asks for a second time if he can arrange a lift for Susan, but Susan politely says she’ll walk.
She walks across the playground and across the field.
There are two figures in the playground, one tall and making strides out towards the back gate. The other is a girl.
The sun had threatened to emerge all afternoon, and here it came between the clouds, a watery sun.
The smaller figure on the field has footballs lined up in front of her.
Susan diverts and approaches the girl. There was something unexpected about her, it’s not the ponytail, darker than Susan’s. It’s the glasses, held in place by a band around her head.
The girl can’t be more than ten or eleven years old.
“Are you allowed to be out here on your own?” says Susan, with authority that surprises herself.
“Aye,” says the girl and ran up to the ball at the edge, the shot has power, perhaps more than you’d expect from someone of that age.
“Can I have a shot?” says Susan. The girl stands aside, not knowing quite what to say or who this lady is.
There were three balls left, and Susan hits them one by one like deadly sniper, if snipers were able to put a bit of curl on their shots.
One, two, three in the top corner. There is no goalkeeper but a goalkeeper would not have had a chance.
The girl is trying to process what she is seeing and doesn’t quite manage to.
“Why don’t you have anyone to practice with?” says Susan.
“I do, we’ve finished practice, but I just wanted to do a bit more.”
“Ah okay. Nice. And you’re allowed?”
The girl’s head dropped.
“What’s your name?”
“Clare”
“Clare, will yer do me two wee favours?”
Clare nods, a little intimidated, mainly by the quality of Susan’s shots.
“First, always make sure someone knows where you are.”
“They do.”
“Okay fine, and I mean always.”
“Second. Will you let me teach you free-kicks?”
“Now?”
“Not now. But I’ll come back. I promise you. Next week if I can.”
“Are you the footballer that spoke to year six?”
“Aye, I’m Susan and I’m coming back for you.”
“Let’s get those balls and then please go back and make sure they know you’re here.”
The collect the balls together. Clare leaves them by the goal and walks back towards the school building.
“Clare”, Susan calls after her.
“I’m going to be Scotland’s main striker. But you’re better than I was when I was your age.”
Clare gave a wave and continued walking back to the school building.
Like Susan had switched a light on inside of her. Clare was glowing.
Susan’s phone lit up with a call from a Scotland teammate. It was Rif.
*
Susan’s walk back home took her across the old pitch in the old town.
Two lads were practising free-kicks.
Susan walks straight down the centre of the pitch, goalpost to goalpost, ponytail bobbing with her strides.
The boys are chatting and their ball is invitingly sitting between the two of them.
“Give us a shot boys,” says Susan, as they look up, a bit taken aback they’ve been asked.
“Okay. You’ll nae fuckin score tho.”
The nets aren’t up, just the posts.
Susan lines up a shot and catches the ball sweetly. For a moment they all think she has scored. She hasn’t. It doesn’t quite curl enough into the top corner.
“Go and fetch it” says the second lad to Susan.
Susan jogs towards the ball behind the goal slowly.
“Fucking lazy,” says the other lad, loud enough for her to hear, now warming to the little piece of theatre and a chance to play ‘the big man’ in front of his friend.
Susan collects the ball.
In rugby style she picks it up and drop-kicks it away from the pitch with a sweet connection that makes a ‘thump’ sound. The ball ends up in a nearby stream.
“No, you fuckin’ fetch it.” said Susan and sprinted away, laughing.
Her aura giving off light across the town.
Ready to offer her hand to anyone who needs it. In this town and beyond.
Football Fables are the first collection of short stories by Lee Wellings, an author who spent 30 years in media working for companies including Sky, BBC and ITN. New stories will be released each month, usually on the first Friday. The first two stories are free to read. From November a small monthly subscription will be introduced.
More details in the post below, and this is how first collection looks:
The Footballer Who Kicked A Tortoise (free to read, link available on this site)
Lazy Susan
The Check (free to read, link available on this site)
The Man Who Murdered Football (coming soon)
A Tale of Two Clubs
Ref!
Superstition
Tie a Yellow Scarf
I Wear Eleven
Golden Eras