Chapter 2

A couple of days later and all that was soon forgotten as my working life seemed about to turn upside down. I was by then a morning shift supervisor for our company, which had recently been taken over by a much larger group. There were the usual talk of redundancies and just about everyone was worried for their jobs. The week following the match was full of rumours of all types, though we did survive without any related problems. Equally and unsurprisingly there were no explanations given by the new management.

The following Monday all the supervisors and lower management were called to a meeting scheduled to start at 2:00pm when it was deemed that both shifts would be available. Presumably, higher management already knew what was happening. There were fourteen people sat in the boardroom waiting when Bill McElney, the Managing Director, walked in with three other people in tow. My heart sank the moment I recognised one of them. It was Rachel Evans' mother, the woman who had struck me at the match. I didn't hear our esteemed leader twitter on as my mind was on the ramifications of what was happening. I only started listening properly when Mrs. Stephanie Evans was introduced and stepped forward to talk.

She looked around the room and her eyes settled on me. 'Ah! It seems we have the local pervert amongst us.' She said pointing at me with a malicious smile, before continuing, 'And for those of you who don't already know let me tell you that he spends his spare time ogling pretty schoolgirls. He did this with my daughter at her new school and was so angry at being caught out he then ensured that she would not be welcome in the school football team despite her obvious talent.'

She looked around the room smirking at the shock on everyone's face. I was stunned at first. I'd been worried as soon as I saw her but this was beyond anything that I'd expected. I knew enough to realise that without an adequate denial most people would believe my accuser. Hell, there were a few that would now believe it whatever evidence came to refute the allegations.

I stood up. 'I feel I must explain a few things.' I started before being interrupted by our M.D.

He said condescendingly, 'not now David we are in an important meeting.'

I continued anyway. 'If this is the place for this woman to make allegations, then this is also the correct place to refute them.'

He started to say something but I didn't give him the chance. 'Sit down and shut up Bill. These are very serious accusations and I will answer them.' I saw Ms. Evans look nervously at her colleagues as if trying to get one of them to intervene.

'The day in question, I was looking at Rachel Evans, who as her mother said is a pretty girl and from what chance I got to talk to her, a nice one too; attributes she obviously didn't inherit from her mother.'

A few of my colleagues giggled nervously at the last bit.

'As at least two people in this room already know, I was once a reasonably good footballer and as such was asked to assist in the coaching of my daughter's school football team. On that particular day there was a regular training match going on. Rachel was being trialled to discover if she was good enough to play for the team, so I obviously spent more time watching her than the others. Oh, let me just mention, before I was allowed to assist I had to go through a police check to ensure I wasn't deemed unfit to be close to children. Needless to say I passed. Anyway, during the match the woman at the front here decided to attack me both verbally and physically. One of the other mothers dragged her away and I am one hundred percent sure that my position would have been explained to her.'

One look at Ms. Evans' demeanour convinced all in the room that I was right.