Heads started to drop after the third goal went in. Our goalkeeper was already complaining of a phantom thigh injury (a convenient knock which would see him substituted at half-time) and our captain was tugging distractedly at his armband. For my part, I had mud caked hard on my legs and my face was stinging where I had misjudged a header. Our team, it seemed, had given up already. We were barely five minutes in, and already the gulf in class was evident - had been evident ever since they turned up in their sleek team bus wearing their sleek warm-up kit, emblazoned with the badge of the academy for superhuman footballers for which they played. They looked like men. For my lot, a mob of boys wearing ill-fitting, hand-me-down kits older than we were, the scoreline seemed to have been chalked well in advance of kick-off.

It was the County Cup, I was sixteen, and the unluck of the draw had seen our ragtag state-school eleven pitted against a private academy, one of the favourite teams to win the whole tournament. They were taller, faster, stronger, and more technical than us. They came, they saw, and they conquered, and soon it was four. For the fifth goal, our star defensive midfielder, supposedly, was nutmegged and left in the mud. The sixth was my fault – a horrific bounce which left me watching, hands-on-hips, as their forward tore through. Seven was a long shot from outside our box. Eight was a penalty.

We started the second half, then, eight goals down. We had left our dignity in the changing rooms; we were playing for pride at this point, and even in that department we had been found wanting. And then it happened. Perhaps it was a result of the ‘character building’ we had heard so much about from our coach, or perhaps it was dumb luck.

We caught them off-guard, is how we did it. It started with a skyward clearance by yours truly, after which our star midfielder won the knockdown against a man so tall he belonged on a basketball court rather than a football pitch. The ball fell to our striker, practically his first touch of the game. Legs fresh, he took it round one, two, three – jumping over challenges and slaloming past chiselled bodies (we should know; we had to share a changing room with them). He pulled the trigger from distance and time stopped. When it started again, their keeper had his face in the mud and a ball in his net.

We celebrated by running the length of the touchline, all whoops and jeers as if we had won the World Cup, as if any of this mattered, as if we weren’t a bunch of boys 8-1 down in a pointless county-wide school football tournament. In that moment, a goal was enough. A freak, delicious goal, and a digit which introduced a touch of dignity to the proceedings, evidence of that built character. And while I bet none of those academy boys (some of whom you will have seen on TV) remember that game, or us, I assure you that we remember them.