Chapter 1

'Come on Kate, you can do better than that, ' I shouted loudly at my daughter.

A minute later I was shouting at another girl, then a third as the football match progressed. Kate had played since she was old enough to kick a ball and had been a lot more involved in the game since she moved up to her new school. I had been a reasonable player reaching the lower levels of the pyramid {http://www.thepyramid.info/} before my wife's death had made me re-evaluate my priorities. Once my lovely daughter had boasted of this, I was swiftly cajoled into helping with the school team. Helen Piper was the P.E. Teacher and the nominal coach of the team but I tended to look after everything on the pitch and help with training. Helen was in her early twenties and in her first teaching job. Tall, slim and as you would expect, extremely fit, Helen was loved by the girls who seemed to relate better to someone nearer their age than most of the other teachers. Helen didn't fall short in the looks stakes either and was regularly hit on by most of the single fathers and teachers as well as some of the married ones. When we first worked together she put an understandable barrier up but once she realised that I was only interested in teaching her girls football, she relaxed a lot more. We worked well together, so well that a couple of the other girls' mothers often teased me over what they called my 'feigned disinterest'. I always just smiled. My eyes could see that Helen was a beautiful young woman but no other part of me was remotely interested in her or any woman. Jennifer still had a strong hold of my heart whilst Kate took everything left.

The first year I was at involved with the team was a real learning curve for everyone concerned. Helen and I had to learn to work together, I needed to realise that thirteen year old girls could not do what I was used to and the girls had to learn how to trust us, me in particular. Midway through the second year and we had the makings of a good side. We were still short of good left-sided players and so were always on the lookout.

Rachel Evans was a new girl to the school, moving into the area only the week previous. She'd expressed a keen interest in the game so Helen had suggested we give her a chance. We would have done that anyway but once we found out that she was left-footed we put her into the first available game and after only half an hour's play she looked very promising. We had decided to start playing her at left-back with the intention of moving her up to midfield in the second half if she proved herself. She was certainly doing that and I already felt confident enough that one left sided position was filled.

Helen and I would always spend the first half of any match on either side of the pitch. This tended to give us a better overall view of our opponents and how our own team were playing, thus ensuring we had a better idea of how we could improve things.

Apart from Kate, who I always watched intensely, as could be expected, I was paying more attention to Rachel than I was to any of the others, after all, by then I knew what to expect from them.

'Bloody pervert!'

I spun around at the loud voice behind me to see what was happening. Part of the training that I'd been required to do before I was allowed anywhere near a girls' team was keeping an eye out for 'undesirables' as they were known.

I was amazed to see a unknown woman shouting and doubly shocked when I realised that I was her target. I was too stunned even to protect myself when she slapped me across the face.