Soldier's Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

shadowed by the tall tenement buildings of Fountainbridge. Often he’d collapse gasping for breath and a child would run for his mother or his older sister Mary to carry him home.
    “I’m okay,” he’d say. “Just a wee bit winded.”
    Over the years the asthma eased in severity and his father allowed Jack to play for Shandon Boys. Here he demonstrated both speed and agility on the pitch – first at midfield and then as a striker. The manager at Shandon told Tom that Jack had an instinctive feel for the game, something that couldn’t be taught.
    To Jack being in motion with a ball just seemed natural – legs, lungs, head all came together. He could no more account for it than explain the beating of his own heart.
    That Saturday morning in late June, Jack and his father took the number 23 tram down to an athletics outfitter on Thistle Street. Here Tom asked to see the best football boots in the shop. The sales clerk looked doubtful but brought out a pair from the back.
    “You won’t get better than these,” he said, laying the boots on the counter. “Top quality stitching, fine English leather.”
    “How much?” Tom asked.
    “Twenty-two shillings,” replied the clerk.
    Jack whispered at his father’s back, “We can’t afford that.”
    “Fit him a pair,” Tom replied without hesitation.
    Jack protested again but sat on the bench and let the clerk measure his feet. The new boots were stiff and springy but the perfect fit. Jack stood up and took a few steps and then a hop. It was as though he had a whole new pair of feet.
    Later to celebrate the purchase they went for lunch at Mathers. Workers had just come off a shift at one of the mills and the pub was loud and smoky. They found two stools and Jack felt he’d never seen his father look happier sitting at the bar beside him eating his steak pie and chips.
    “Thanks again for the boots,” Jack said.
    Tom raised his pint and shouted to be heard over the noise of the pub, “I may have bought them, but it’s you that has to fill them.”
    ***
    Jack turned up for his first training session that next Monday along with two other new players. Drew Hendry had been recruited from a local club atMossend – a tall, lanky goalkeeper. The other man came all the way from Newcastle. A scout acting for McCartney spotted Hugh Wilson playing winger for an amateur side in Jarrow. He’d been working as a miner before giving up his job to come north to Edinburgh.
    Trainer Jimmy Duckworth met them at the gate for a quick tour of the grounds before assigning each a locker. Jack had played against Mossend before so he and Hendry chatted while changing into their kit. Wilson spoke not a word, a grim, unsmiling boy with badly pockmarked cheeks.
    All three jogged across the training pitch to join the other second team players warming up. The squad spent an hour at drills and then the assistant trainer Alex Lyon split them up for a match.
    Jack played at centre forward but struggled to find the measure of the game. The defenders were far more confident and aggressive than he was used to – not surprisingly. It was a whole different level of football. Try as he might he could not force an opening near the box.
    Word had already spread among the squad that McCartney had recruited yet another Englishman. Some players resented this and one in particular – adefender named Bryson – seemed to take an instant hatred to Hugh Wilson.
    All through the first half the older player bumped and jostled the Englishman, keeping him off balance. Each time Wilson got near the ball Bryson was there for the tackle, but always with an added shoulder or elbow. Lyon warned him half a dozen times but it made no difference.
    Wilson took the abuse without comment and about ten minutes into the second half the ball came to him again. Bryson charged in, but this time Wilson made a neat side step and turned on the ball, leaving the defender nothing but thin air. He dribbled down towards the corner in