Legacy: The Autobiography of Tim Cahill. Tim Cahill

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СКАЧАТЬ it was their old club. I played in one Under-18s game and was gearing up to play for the Under-21s when Coach Xipolitas said to me in his heavy Greek accent: “Tim, you won’t play with the Under-21s today.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Today I want you to play in first team.”

      The Hercules’ first team played at Belmore Oval, right across the road from Canterbury Boys School. Everyone—all the fans and the families of the players—sat on the hill or stood behind the clubhouse and huddled around the souvlaki stand. It was a big deal on the weekends for the Hercules faithful to gather at Belmore Oval for the first-team matches.

      To this day, I’m still the youngest player ever to lace his boots for the Belmore first team. I was a small fifteen-year-old, playing with grown men. At one point, late in the match, the coach waved me on as a substitute at a set-piece. I ran on just as one of our midfielders was about to take a corner. The way the play unfolded, it took me straight back to my days with Marrickville Red Devils—the first time I’d ever scored in a match with my head.

      The ball came over from the right, I jumped with three other defenders—men who were much bigger than me. I managed to climb out of the pack: not using vertical leap, but proper timing of my run.

      There was no luck involved. I saw the ball, knew I was going to get my head on it but now the quality of the contact was the most important thing. Eyes wide open, I opened my body up a bit, my right shoulder squared, then I headed it down, aiming for the bottom right corner. The grass was a little wet, and I turned and watched as the ball skipped past the goalkeeper, billowing the net.

      I was swarmed by my team-mates! Even the other team—after the match—came over to congratulate me on the quality of the header that won us the league.

      I was named top scorer in the league that year: thirty goals in all competitions for all three teams—Under-18s, Under-21s and first team—the most goals ever scored in a season for Belmore Hercules.

      I’d been cut by Sydney Olympic for the Under-18s squad—wasn’t considered good enough—but I could start for the first team of Belmore Hercules, albeit two divisions below, and win the championship and the overall scoring record.

      That was one of my proudest moments growing up as a footballer in Australia. I had spent that entire season trying to recover from being dropped by Sydney Olympic, but I made something of the setback. I had scored big goals practically every week for Hercules with the Under-18s and Under-21s, and now I’d come on in a big match to score the winner with the first team.

      At Hercules, I blossomed and found my niche. In the end, being dropped by Sydney Olympic might have been the best thing that could have happened to me.

PART 02

       SACRIFICES

      THROUGHOUT MY HIGH SCHOOL YEARS at Kingsgrove North I continued playing high-level football—now for Sydney United, a club as heavily influenced by its Croatian culture as Sydney Olympic was by its Greek origins.

      Though I ended up staying less than a full season, Sydney United was another stepping stone, a club with a rich history where I had a chance to play with some fantastic youth talent like Joel Griffiths and David James—my old mate from the Johnny Doyle private training lesson. Phil Pavela, our coach, really believed in me, could see that I had potential even if I still needed some polish. That’d been the story of my life with some coaches: they either saw the future player I could become or they didn’t. Sydney United played at Edensor Park—a beautiful 12,000-seat stadium—against all the big teams like Marconi and Olympic. Coach Pavela gave me a lot of playing time with the Under-21s, pushed me hard in training, but also helped me a lot off the park, becoming close with my family.

      Then one day, midway through Year 11, I got home from school and something was different in the house.

      “Have a seat, Tim,” my dad said. “We need to have a chat.”

      I put my things down and joined my parents at the kitchen table.

      “I’ve made a few calls to England,” my father began.

      Now I glanced at my mum and I could see she was upset. She’d been crying a few minutes earlier. I lost track of what my father was saying. Anytime my mum’s upset, I’m upset.

      “… In any event, we think you’re ready,” Dad said. “We’ve got an opportunity to send you to England and we think it’s the right time …”

      “What? England?”

      “You’re just sixteen,” my mum said. “You have to tell us—is this something you really want to do?”

      I sat there, silently mulling it over.

      “It’s not going to be easy,” she continued. “You’re not going to be at home. You’re going to be …”

      “Where will I live?”

      “You’ll be staying with Mum’s relatives,” Dad said.

      “Glen and Lindsey,” Mum said. “The Stanleys.”

      I remembered seeing a photograph or two, but I really had no connection besides recognizing their names.

      I asked what club I would have a trial with. What my dad said came as a bit of a shock.

      “You don’t have an official trial as yet, but don’t worry about that. I’ll be working out the details. If we can get you a trial—and it’s still a big if—you’re going to have to wait in England. Nothing’s guaranteed, Tim. We don’t even know if you’ll get a trial this year, so you may have to enrol in school. But you’ll need to be over there if and when we get that call.”

      My dad had already made calls to a man named Allen Batsford. He’d been the manager of Wimbledon and was now a talent scout for Nottingham Forest. I didn’t understand the details fully, but Allen Batsford had a relationship with the Millwall youth team as well. Dad had also been in touch with another guy named Bob Pearson, who at the time was the chief scout for Millwall Football Club.

      Once I heard those names—Millwall and Nottingham Forest—I was sold on the idea. Just to have a shot at a trial for a professional football club in England was enough for me.

      “But listen to me, Tim,” Mum said. “You’re the only one who can say if you’re ready to do it.”

      “Ready to go off and live with Mum’s relatives all on your own?” Dad said. “Do you understand what that’ll mean?”

      “Yeah, I understand,” I said, though I really hadn’t a clue.

      Maybe my dad saw the uncertainty in my face, because he said: “There’s another route, you know. You can stay here, live at home, finish up your schooling and play in Australia.”

      I thought about that—about not making it with Sydney Olympic, dropping to a lower division to prove what I could do with Belmore Hercules. That was a tough battle, and even though things were now going well for me at Sydney United, I sensed that having a career as a professional footballer at home—given the tastes of the СКАЧАТЬ