You Can Win If You Want by Modern Talking (1984)
https://youtu.be/b0qAJ-jfTts
Clifton's POV.
Playing rugby without my twin being in the team or cheering me on from the touchline was something new for me and without the competitiveness that scenario generated I found myself actually enjoying playing the sport much more than I ever had. The fact that we were winning most games must have contributed to my new found enjoyment.
Dickie had commented on the fact that my kicking was not as good as my reputation, or should I say my twin's reputation, but he was all too aware that I wasn't fully fit. I still perpetrated the lie that I had injured my back and groin at the end of last season in the hope that it would hide any other discrepancies in the way that I played.
It was highly unlikely that we would ever play against my old school but I was acutely aware that we could play against teams that I, or the real Clifton, had played against before.
The success of the Reserve XV was not just down to me, although the fly-half's role in rugby is an important one. We had won games because we played as a single unit, a proper team. Having played alongside my twin as an Inside Centre and being a versatile player I knew exactly what to do as fly-half and no one questioned my instructions during the game and acted immediately to my every shout.
Having a good Scrum Half helped. For the Reserve XV it was usually Nathan Pendleton-White, who went by the almost obligatory nickname of Chalky for anyone called White. He was small and fast and his deft handling helped me distribute the ball quickly along our back line.
I'm sure that it was this team cohesion that Bradley and Leo had seen and could see that it was precisely what the 1st team lacked.
Graham's performance with the 1st team had shown no improvement and Dickie had become impatient with his lack of ability or in following his game plans. With the Inter Schools Challenge Cup 1st round coming up Dickie had finally relented and had promoted me to the 1st team.
Our training had been really intensified and we had won games that on paper we should have lost.
Dickie, of course, was more than delighted with the quality of our wins. He totally believed that the resulting final scores were all due to his tactics and my submissive attitude towards Trevor, who he regarded as his best player and the man of every match.
That was not necessarily true. Trevor was a selfish player. He was a glory hunter who grabbed the limelight whenever he could. For all his protestations to me about Dickie never picking a non team player, Trevor was the one player in the squad that was not a team player at heart. He made all the right noises in the right places and seemed to have Dickie fooled, but he didn't fool me.
There were other things about Trevor that bothered me too. Things that I couldn't quite put a finger on but they smelt. Smelt of duplicity, and I definitely didn't trust him.
He seemed to have some sort of hold over a number of boys in the school, including Logan Holland from the Reserve XV, who was also in my music class, which I found a little disturbing.
Logan, although he was a quiet, reserved boy, seemed more inhibited by Trevor, Kasper, and Fabian when we trained. He became a totally different boy when we played a proper match in the Reserve XV when they were not around. Gone were his inhibitions and he was more chilled out and relaxed, so much so that he often played a blinder.
He was a very handsome boy, you could even call him cute and not be offensive. What's more I found him more than just easy on the eye. I had to hold myself in check and keep any contact with him as minimal as possible as he was, as the bulge in his shorts readily confirmed, well hung and just the type of boy that would usually sexually attract me. I just kept my lustful viewings from a discreet, yet satisfying, distance.
It was during one of those lustful viewings in the changing rooms after a training session, that I had seen Trevor forcibly giving him his boots and kit to clean.
I saw Logan refuse at first, but after some hushed words between them, Logan reluctantly accepted Trevor's kit. The venomous look Logan gave as Trevor walked away suggested something was not quite right and as Kasper and Fabian were not with him, as they invariably were when he bullied someone, I suspected blackmail, but I couldn't be sure.
Somehow I had been elevated, by boys at the school, to a sort of hero figure status all because of the success of the team. I put it down to the fact that most boys didn't like Trevor and wanted an alternative hero figure to worship.
I didn't mind that as I knew that would piss Trevor off and I played along with it by being generous with my greetings and always acknowledging the adulation.
Some boys were quite suggestive in their whispered comments to me and, if I was of a mind, I could have been sexually satisfied every night. I always declined each and every offer, firmly yet politely, and with a smile.
I felt bad for Xander. I could tell how much he liked me. I could see it in his eyes and in the way he was around me, and it must have been upsetting for him to witness these adulations and offers yet he did not utter a word.
However frustrating it was for him by the evening he was always in a more relaxed mood by the time we went to the storeroom in the Music Wing.
We continued to play records, sometimes we danced, but most of all we talked freely about all manner of things. He was a very interesting character, very independent and very focused, yet he had a wicked sense of humour.
I found it easy to tell when he was having one of his mood swings and made allowances for them. They usually didn't last long and he was always wanting to apologise to me for them.
It wasn't necessary as even with his mood swings I liked being in his company.
I had been thinking of reminding him that he had said that he would teach me to meditate so I could learn to relax and focus on the cup game coming up at the weekend. I didn't know if he had meditated the past few weeks as he hadn't said, and I hadn't noticed him doing so.
As my twin hadn't made another appearance in the storeroom I decided not to mention it and I assumed that by not meditating Xander was keeping him at bay.
I asked Xander if he would come and cheer us on Saturday. I had asked him many times before and he had always stubbornly refused. This time was no different but he did promise that one day he would.
🏉~~~🏉~~~🏉~~~🏉 Match Day 🏉~~~🏉~~~🏉~~~🏉
Danescroft School were our opponents for the 1st round of the Inter School's Challenge Cup and they had a fearsome reputation. I knew of them but we had never played against them. They had been one of the top teams the West Midlands had produced for the past four years, but Dickie told us that many of their top players had now left the school and they were now a mixture of experienced and inexperienced players. In essence they were now an unknown quantity and Dickie, quite naturally, was very worried by it even though it was a Home Game for us.
His game plan featured heavily around me as the fly half and he had carefully chosen who to play and, most importantly, which position.
Fabian was his automatic choice for scrum-half. He was small and fast like Chalky and was a very capable player. He was to be protected by both flankers - Leo playing on the left and Kasper playing on the right - with Archie Troughton playing at No 8.
Trevor was a versatile player and Dickie usually asked him to play Inside Centre but today had told him to play on the right wing promising him that he was up against inexperienced players and would be covered in glory.
He had selected Franklyn Spencer-Ryder to be Inside Centre, Zane Chester as Outside Centre, Lewis Owen as Fullback, and River Brock-Chapman as Left Wing.
The forwards remained his usual choice with Benedict Simpson-Smythe as Hooker, Bradley as Tighthead Prop and Edwin Naseby as Loosehead Prop, with Marcus Young and Julian Knight as the Second Row.
Logan, Chalky and Niko were amongst the eight boys from the Reserve XV that were the substitutes today.
Apart from kicking penalties, as a fly-half, I would usually be the first to receive the ball from Fabian following a scrum. I would then have to be decisive in how I distributed the ball, more often than not to Franklyn, as it is imperative that I control the back line and be effective when communicating with them as being the smaller, faster members of the team, they would be likely to score the most tries.
So you can see that it's often the team's game plan and cohesion that wins the game.
Dickie's orders to me were to prioritise my passing so that the ball ended up with Trevor and in theory it sounded like a good game plan.
Don't get me wrong, I was happy to follow through with any orders he gave me but experience told me that was not always how a game unfolded. An opposition Coach would often feed out false information to tactically mislead his opposite number or they simply switched plans as the game progressed. I would have preferred to have another option to fall back on but Dickie wouldn't hear of it and was adamant that Trevor was to be my main focus.
We could hear the noise from the supporters whilst we were still in the changing room. I had played games before and the boys in the school had supported us well but this time the cheering was louder and far more rowdier.
As the noise suddenly intensified Leo noticed the look of concern on my face. "It's a cup game, old boy and that's our 16th player out there making themselves heard. It's one of Dickie's stipulations that for any knockout game every boy must turn out in support...., Masters too. Very few don't turn up to watch but if he had his way no one would be exempted. I reckon the opposition will be cacking their shorts by now."
I liked Leo. Although he was a big, quiet guy he was genuinely a nice person. I knew nearly everyone called him Eyetie, but I actually thought that was offensive and had usually not said a name at all, but I had noticed that Bradley always called him Leo and so that's what I had started to do.
I soon noticed that he was more talkative with me and was more than ready to give me words of advice.
It wasn't long until we were called to go out on the pitch. As usual I hung back, because of superstition, so I would be the last to leave, but no-one had prepared me for the crescendo of noise that hit us as we walked onto the pitch.
It was unbelievably loud. The school band was playing and the sound of klaxon hooters blared out. Banners were held up high, many of them with my name on, singing my praises and urging me to play well. Flags too had been unfurled and were being swung around somewhat alarmingly.
"Don't forget you're to make sure I get the ball!" Trevor snarled in my ear. "The banners may bear your name but I will be the one they will be cheering for when I deliver us the win."
We all grouped around Dickie for the final pep talk.
I thought it was pointless as I could hardly hear him at all and any motivation and inspiration I had needed had already been delivered by our '16th player'.
They won the toss of the coin and kicked off and by the time we had played the first 15 minutes we were losing. They had 13 points from a try and a conversion and two penalty kicks. We only had 3 points from a solitary penalty kick.
Now that's not a very good start, is it? What's more, we were in danger of conceding even more points and not scoring any.
Franklyn was having a nightmare of a game and Zane was being shut down far too quickly to be able to distribute the ball to Trevor. Their so-called inexperienced players were anything but that.
To make matters worse I was getting blamed by Dickie because the ball was not reaching Trevor.
Something had to be done..... and done fast.
Author's Note ✍🏽
Modern Talking - You Can Win If You Want (ZDF Tele-Illustrierte 19.06.1985) https://youtu.be/oQhsD32kvlQ
Well! The guy in yellow had us in fits of laughter with his pelvic thrusts and bad miming. Were music videos really this bad in the 1980's? There are other videos of this song but we just had to include this version because of the insincerity oozing out of every orifice from both of them.
And what's with the plastic curtain at the end? 🤔
That's simply weird, is it not? 🤪😜
M xx ❤️❤️