Thursday legends

Quintin Jardine
1

'Dammit, Diddler, you were a bit late there!'

He glowered up from the floor for a second or two, then grasped the outstretched arm and pulled himself to his feet.

'Sorry, Neil,' the sweating man acknowledged, gasping for breath. 'I guess I'm just not as quick as I used to be, only my brain doesn't know it yet.'

'Hmph! From what I've heard you never were as quick as you used to be. Ah, 'scuse me.' Mcllhenney shoved him to one side and lunged towards the yellow football as it flew towards him, trapping it close to the wall of the sports hall, and holding off the recovered Diddler easily, as he looked inside.

'Right, son!' The call came from Andrew John, surging towards goal at a rate just slightly above his normal walking pace. He rolled the ball into the path of the bearded banker, whose side-footed shot beat the token efforts of Mitchell Laidlaw, taking a breather in goal.

The sturdy lawyer restarted the game quickly, throwing the ball out to the halfway line. The hall was big enough to accommodate full-sized tennis and basketball courts — although it was rarely used for either of those sports — with a raised spectator gallery along one side and two glazed panels set in the other, allowing a view from the Centre's cafeteria.

'Pick him up, Neil,' John called out, as Benny Crossley cut towards the wing. As Mcllhenney sprinted across the court, it occurred to him that his team-mate was at least five yards closer to their opponent, but he let it pass. Benny was no flying winger and was usually predictable, and so he knew that he would turn back on to his right foot for a strike. His block was timed almost perfectly; he won possession as he surged through the tackle, sending the other man spinning, and headed back towards Mitch Laidlaw.

As he moved past the wall panels, he was aware of his son, Spencer watching him, his face almost pressed to the glass.

'Get stuck in, man!' In spite of his exertion, he smiled at the bellow, knowing that it was directed at the unfortunate Crossley, rather than at him. Stewart Rees appointed himself captain of every team in which he played, laying down the law to his colleagues at a volume which rose steadily as the hour progressed; to be fair to him, he did his waning best to set an example. As Rees rushed towards him, Neil played the ball to himself off the wall, avoided his lunge, then set himself to shoot.

For a moment he thought that he had been hit by a car. As Benny Crossley had found a few moments earlier, so the fabric-covered ball seemed to become an immovable object as his right foot slammed against it. His momentum sent him flying forwards, off his feet, twisting instinctively in mid-air to land safely on the hard floor.

There was no apology from Bob Skinner, only the sight, for Mcllhenney, of a retreating back, a long pass being rolled wide of Grant Rock into the path of a grateful Diddler, and an awkward mishit poke which eluded the flapping left hand of David McPhail, the duty goal-keeper.

He picked himself up, moved down, unmarked, to the halfway line and signalled to McPhail to throw the ball out quickly, but just as his team-mate saw his waving gesture, the heavyglazed door to the hall swung open; their equivalent of the referee's whistle. Full-time: the Diddler's goal had been the winner.

Bob Skinner came towards him, smiling, hand outstretched. Edinburgh's Deputy Chief Constable was wearing a Motherwell Football Club replica shirt; he was perspiring, but not as heavily as the others, and his breathing was steady. 'We did you at the end there, fella, did we not?' he chuckled, as Mcllhenney accepted the handshake.

'Maybe, but what a goal to win by. A bloody toe-poke, and sclaffed at that.'

Skinner beamed at him. 'For the Diddler, that was the equivalent of a thirty-yarder into the top corner. All we can do here is our best — whatever that might be.'