Creative Writing - Football, the North London Derby
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by
eyedea (student)
Deshan Thaver 29/10/12
Essay: The Thrill of the Game 11 JH
In the beginning, there was football. The official said, let the stadium lights come on, and they came on. The football players came onto the field, and they saw the light was good. The other team started to show up and practice on the battle ground, otherwise known as the "playing field." Fans shouted. Parents, brothers, sisters, neighbours, strangers, comrades, friends and enemies all piled into the stands to see the game of the year. The official stepped out onto the moist grass at White Hart Lane. The time was seven o'clock p.m. on a Saturday night. He paused for a moment, looked at his stopwatch, and proceeded forward as eleven men of lily-white and eleven men of red came jogging out from inside the tunnel divided by the thin black strip of the match official, as the fans began to cheer, waving various flags. The players ran out to the middle of the stadium. A smell of hatred and resentment came about in the air. The crowd came unglued from their seats. The sounds of various noisemakers filled the air once again. Parents and grandparents alike came to their feet in the stands. Cars stopped on the street in front of the stadium, as they honked their horns, and cheered for their team of choice. As the two men stood in the middle of the field, many thoughts ran through their heads. They both knew someone was going to die, but defeat was out of the question. The official tossed a polished silver pound into the air. The coin hit the wet grass with a shiny face of Queen Elizabeth clearly showing. The home team will receive the ball. Both anger infested players shook hands and ran back to their side-line. The fans began to cheer as the players took the field again. The kick-off approached, almost instantaneously. Memories of past football games were rushing through our heads. The clock read zero minutes even. Suddenly, a whistle blew, and the show began. Running to the ball, one of the Arsenal quickly caught the football with the heel of his left foot, stepped left, then to the right, covering positive yardage. Soon after, he was brought down by a lily-white warrior, and the ball was put out of play.
I had been waiting for this moment all of my life. The match of the century. Spurs have lost seven years straight to the Arsenal. We, the fans only daydream of beating the undefeated gunners. As the manager called the play with several extravagant hand gestures, I smiled with joy. We, as a team, were slowly tearing apart the Arsenal defence. Our offense was dominating the ball, and they could not score against our defence. Shortly after the first half, the Spurs took the lead going into the second half, one to zero.
“COME ON YOU SPURS! ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
I had been waiting for this moment all of my life. The match of the century. Spurs have lost seven years straight to the Arsenal. We, the fans only daydream of beating the undefeated gunners. As the manager called the play with several extravagant hand gestures, I smiled with joy. We, as a team, were slowly tearing apart the Arsenal defence. Our offense was dominating the ball, and they could not score against our defence. Shortly after the first half, the Spurs took the lead going into the second half, one to zero.
“COME ON YOU SPURS! COME ON YOU SPURS!”
The next few minutes before half-time came as a shock to our team. We were starting to get tired, and made little mistakes. Our team fumbled again and turned the ball back over to the gunners, resulting in an Arsenal goal. We all hung our heads as Arsenal celebrated their goal, and taunted our players.
“WE SCORE WHEN WE WANT, WE SCORE WHEN WE WANT! ARSENAL FC! WE SCORE WHEN WE WANT!”
As the captain approached our side-line, the coach had a few words of his own to share with the team. "Listen up here, it isn’t over yet. If you give up now, you are going to lose. That is the sport of football. If you give up, you lose. You’re not going to let seven years of ridicule continue today, just because you were tired. Now go tell that to the rest of the team!” Well that’s at least what I like to think he had said. We as a team knew our coach was serious, as a tiny tear drop formed in the corner of his eye.
“FOREVER IN OUR SHADOW, TOTTENHAM HOTSPURS WILL FOREVER BE IN OUR SHADOW!”
The next half, our team took the field. With anger and rage in my eyes, I was ready. I was a true lean, mean, killing machine. Nothing was going to get in my way. My head steamed a white smoke. And I was just in the crowd, but that didn’t matter because I was a part of this team and my hatred for the Arsenal burned like the intense flames of a thousand white hot burning suns.
“STAND UP IF YOU HATE ARSENAL!
STAND UP IF YOU HATE ARSENAL!”
The weather slowly began to get colder. The sky, covered with clouds, grumbled at us as we shouted our chants, and sang our songs. The weather began to get colder, and small droplets of water started to fall from the sky. I felt the nervousness of the crowd, as the red and white seas stood still and broke into silence. Managers paced back and forth, as we headed into the last few minutes. Three minutes remained on the clock. The weather took over the game, pouring down with rain from the black sky. Our player had the ball at his feet. His pace was blisteringly quick and his technique was impeccable. He dribbled past the first then the second and now it’s just him and the keeper. Every other player just faded away into the blur caused by the rain and it became an isolated battle. The Arsenal fans started shouting and screaming, much like the barbarians that they are, in hopes to distract our player. But to no avail, he stared that keeper down and jeered to the left and then to the right just edging past the keeper, well almost. The left boot of the keeper clipping our player as he descended to the ground clumsily. The crowd starts to shout in angst and anger. Half protesting his innocence, the other half demanding his demise. The whistle finally blew and we waited in anticipation for the referee’s decision.
“YES!”
The stadium broke out in a thunderous roar as the decision was announced and the penalty was given. This was our chance I kept telling myself. It was the 87th minute of the game. There is no way those Arsenal scum could catch us if we score this. And then it all went silent. I looked up and around at the people around me. Some held their heads in their hands, too afraid to look. Others looked to the sky, palms together, saying a prayer to themselves in the hope that some divine entity would help them in this situation. Others sat on the edge of the seat, eyes wide opened, eagerly anticipating the decisive penalty. But one thing that everyone could agree on, spurs and arsenal fans alike, now it was the time to be silent. The chaotic noise that once filled this stadium was soon drowned out by the deafening silence until all that could be heard was the rain hammering against the roof of the fortress and the cars as they passed. It was a silence that I enjoyed. A moment in which I could take in and absorb the significance of the events happening around me, the heavy blanket of emotion that lay across every single person in that ground, the devastation, the nerves, the anxiety showing on every face. The feeling of how nothing else matters in that moment, how everyone and everything fades away from you, how everything you worried about before the game suddenly don’t seem as important as what they once were and how it’s just you ,that player, that keeper and that ball. And then suddenly the whistle blew. You could feel the breath being inhaled in throughout the ground. He looked to the left and then to the right but never at the keeper. He took a deep breath, shook his body as he exhaled and ran up to that ball and connected with it with his left boot that it almost seemed to bend around his foot and then shoot into the air. The ball must have been travelling at speeds close to what you would find on a motorway but in that instance time seemed to slow down. The ground was quiet, the rain seemed to slow down, and I could see the ball rotating fiercely in the air as it propelled towards the upper right corner of the goal. The net shot back, the keeper on the floor, head in hands and the player almost instantaneously on his knees, tears drenching his cheek. All that silence from before had gone. Forgotten and lost in the rupture that was the chants and screams of the fans. A forest of white erupted out of their seats.
“COME ON YOU SPURS! COME ON YOU SPURS!”
We had done it. I had done it. They had done it. We finally broke the curse. We stepped out of that shadow. We blew away the gunners. We beat the Arsenal and I was there, I was in that army and I won. Tears suddenly poured down my face and made me realize just how cold the night actually was. I grabbed onto the closet person I could reach and I danced and sang and jumped and cried. This moment, this moment was the moment I had lived for. The feeling I had longed for, the memories that I wanted and the happiness that I needed.
“OH WHEN THE SPURS…. OH WHEN THE SPURS GO MARCHING IN! I WANT TO BE! IN THAT NUMBER!”
